So, in Quechua, Moquegua means sleepy little place, or something like that. Turns out, thats not so inaccurate! This town in super quiet- not much to do besides work, eat, drink pisco sours, and sleep. Which is actually kind of nice because I´ve been fairly busy with bone stuff, so not too much time if there was more touristy stuff to do!
The market here is crazy-- tons of stalls with anything and everything you never knew you wanted or needed. We bought some shirts the other day, after much discussion of whether they were actually nice clothes or if we just had gotten ¨Peru eyes¨meaning that all overly gawdy, blinged out shirts look kinda nice and furry hoods are a must. Speaking of, I bought a sweatshirt with a furry hood. hahaha its soooo sick. so sick.
World Cup madness has hit Peru (and the world) hard, so most morning and afternoons I take a break to go watch whatever game is on with the janitors here. They carry a tv from the lab to the main lobby of the ever-so busy museum (not) every morning so that they can watch when not needed elsewhere. Its a lot of fun to watch with them bc they like to ¨call¨ goals before they happen, and they are right most of the time! And of course, the awesome announcers here who yell GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL for like 2 minutes after someone scores. its the best!
Headed back to Copacabana this Sunday, after a brief stay in Arequipa on Friday and Saturday. First real traveling alone experience here (beyond short cab rides or flights) so we shall see how it goes!!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
No Booth, but Plenty of Bones!
Ok, so I promised some people (cough, jane, cough) updates on bones, so here goes nothing...
In Copacabana, I was supposed to just be finishing up collecting some data for my advisor, Dale, from two sites that he worked on there in 2006 or so. However, Sergio has just started to excavate a new site, Cundisa, which has about 3000 years of occupation (Yaya-Mama, Tiwanaku, and Inka) and 114 tombs that no one has looked at yet, since excavation. Sergio asked if I would go through and do a basic inventory of what each burial included bone-wise, and note anything that seemed abnormal (trauma, disease etc). Most of the burials were poorly preserved bc of years of rain as well as disturbance from plowing, and the Inka poking into other people´s burials. Freaking nosy Inka... :)
Anyway, found some cool stuff amongst the 114 tombs- two people with crazy bad periosteal disease and osteomyletis, lots of young children (identified only by teeth bc the bones were so terrible, ugh), and two instances of probably interpersonal violence (skull fractures! woo!). One of the skull fractures had started to heal but definitely probably caused the guys death first, and the other was operated/trephined-- ie his people cut into his skull to try and fix the injury but it definitely didnt work. Really neat for me to find though bc I´ve never seen that in the record before in my experience, and supposedly this burial is Yaya-mama (1500ish years ago) and there isn´t much previous evidence of them practicing treponation. Its possible since many of the burials were disturbed that its an Inka boy, not yayamama, but its unclear. I´m heading back to Bolivia in a week and plan to look at the excavation records and pictures and see if I can write it up for an SAA presentation/short paper etc.
Now, here in Peru, I´m comparing dental age with long bone length. Long bone length is one way many bioarchs tell age of a person at time of death, if teeth or other indicators aren´t available. However, people in the Andes are fairly short, both currently and historically and its really hasn´t been systematically studied to see how this affects ageing of skeletons. So far, after looking at my measurements on about 75 individuals 21 and under, its seems like there is about a 2 year age difference between how old their teeth say they are, and how long one would expect the long bones to be. Pretty interesting! Another archaeologist here working on ceramics thinks someone has investigated this on the North Coast of Peru so I´ll have to check out that dissertation and compare results.
Oof ok. I think thats all I got for now. I just got permission to look at a few more collections here which is good bc I finished the first 3 sites (Omo, Omo Alto, and Rio Muerto) today after just 4 days of work! Good thing theres more to see in Bolivia next week bc I had planned on this work here taking me a month or so, hahah. Oh well, so it goes!
I´m keeping my eyes open for Booth, Caryn. (OH speaking of, I saw an episode of Bones here in Spanish and it was way funny. The one of the airplane to China, of all places. They call her ¨Huesos¨which is way less cool than Bones, but understandable...)
In Copacabana, I was supposed to just be finishing up collecting some data for my advisor, Dale, from two sites that he worked on there in 2006 or so. However, Sergio has just started to excavate a new site, Cundisa, which has about 3000 years of occupation (Yaya-Mama, Tiwanaku, and Inka) and 114 tombs that no one has looked at yet, since excavation. Sergio asked if I would go through and do a basic inventory of what each burial included bone-wise, and note anything that seemed abnormal (trauma, disease etc). Most of the burials were poorly preserved bc of years of rain as well as disturbance from plowing, and the Inka poking into other people´s burials. Freaking nosy Inka... :)
Anyway, found some cool stuff amongst the 114 tombs- two people with crazy bad periosteal disease and osteomyletis, lots of young children (identified only by teeth bc the bones were so terrible, ugh), and two instances of probably interpersonal violence (skull fractures! woo!). One of the skull fractures had started to heal but definitely probably caused the guys death first, and the other was operated/trephined-- ie his people cut into his skull to try and fix the injury but it definitely didnt work. Really neat for me to find though bc I´ve never seen that in the record before in my experience, and supposedly this burial is Yaya-mama (1500ish years ago) and there isn´t much previous evidence of them practicing treponation. Its possible since many of the burials were disturbed that its an Inka boy, not yayamama, but its unclear. I´m heading back to Bolivia in a week and plan to look at the excavation records and pictures and see if I can write it up for an SAA presentation/short paper etc.
Now, here in Peru, I´m comparing dental age with long bone length. Long bone length is one way many bioarchs tell age of a person at time of death, if teeth or other indicators aren´t available. However, people in the Andes are fairly short, both currently and historically and its really hasn´t been systematically studied to see how this affects ageing of skeletons. So far, after looking at my measurements on about 75 individuals 21 and under, its seems like there is about a 2 year age difference between how old their teeth say they are, and how long one would expect the long bones to be. Pretty interesting! Another archaeologist here working on ceramics thinks someone has investigated this on the North Coast of Peru so I´ll have to check out that dissertation and compare results.
Oof ok. I think thats all I got for now. I just got permission to look at a few more collections here which is good bc I finished the first 3 sites (Omo, Omo Alto, and Rio Muerto) today after just 4 days of work! Good thing theres more to see in Bolivia next week bc I had planned on this work here taking me a month or so, hahah. Oh well, so it goes!
I´m keeping my eyes open for Booth, Caryn. (OH speaking of, I saw an episode of Bones here in Spanish and it was way funny. The one of the airplane to China, of all places. They call her ¨Huesos¨which is way less cool than Bones, but understandable...)
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Moquegua: where the grass don´t grow and the mummies are smelly
Ok so... I´ve totally not updated for a long time. BUT I swear, I´ve been super busy? At least, having too much fun to tell you all about it :P but now I´ll try and give you some of the highlights...
--high school graduation party in Copa called ¨Tomar El Nombre¨which means ¨To Drink the Name¨. Every graduating class picks a special name based off the padrinos of that year- the people who help pay for this party and guide the kids later in life. This year, Sergio and Stasia were the padrino and madrina so they were the guests of honor which basically meant they had to drink the most! Sergio suggested that we students should do a little performance or something to represent US culture to these people (eek?! what?!) so, under my direction, we line danced for them at this party! It was totally absurd and all the teenage bolivian boys were like uhhhhwhat. But it was a lot of fun to perform for like 200 people and then get to do some drinking and real dancing!
--Island of the Sun: for all you anthropologists, you can ignore this part if you feel like you know allllll about it. but for everyone else... the Island of the Sun is an island (duh) in the middle of Lake Titicaca (aka lake BP) that was especially sacred to the Inka Empire. Actually, they considered it to be their place of origin in their mythology and the Sapa Inka (king) would make annual pilgrimages there on the solstice or for other important events to make offerings etc. So there are some cool ruins and big carved stone that looks like a puma head and a temple and stuff. There are of course tons of tours and stuff but its cool bc unlike most European tourist attractions, its not for the faint of heart or out of shape. You have to hike for about 45 minutes to get the main sites (on somewhat paved roads, probably originally Inka) up and down hills and stuff. That wasn´t so bad but then to get to the south side of the Island, where your boat picks you up, you hike for 3 hours across some rather large hills, (dare I say mountains?). (Emilie, imagine that mountain in France, but up AND down instead of just up. and more interspersed up then down then up etc. But just as tiring!) But it was a lot of fun and obviously totally worth it because the views were gorgeous and it felt like the top of the world. I can see why the Inka chose it as their mythical origins!!
--Finally, the title of this post. Moquegua. Its in Peru and its where I am now! Moquegua is in the middle of the Atacama desert, one of the driest largest deserts in the world. Luckily for people, its also a mountanous area and the valleys between mountains have glacial rivers running through them, so the valleys are inhabitable. Luckily for archaeologists, the dry climate makes preservation unreal! there are a ton of mummies for this area (the earliest mummies in the world come from about an hourish south of here, in North Chile) which is actaully kinda gross hahah bc alot of the bones I´m studying still have bits of muscle attached. And it smells terrible. Kinda sickly sweet and musky at the same time. Blergh. But, really freakin cool!!!
I´m staying with a sweet family here- a mom and her two kids who are all so nice although talk very very quickly. Needless to say, my spanish is slowly imporving but we still do a lot of miming. The mom is already trying to set me up with her 24 year old son in Arequipa, so its just like being at home. :)
Alright well i´m supposed to be eating lunch so... adios for now! Oh, and I got a cell phone here so if anyone feels like spending money, call me at 953 69 43 42 (tahts exactly what to dial from the US too)!
Saraaaaaaaaaaa
--high school graduation party in Copa called ¨Tomar El Nombre¨which means ¨To Drink the Name¨. Every graduating class picks a special name based off the padrinos of that year- the people who help pay for this party and guide the kids later in life. This year, Sergio and Stasia were the padrino and madrina so they were the guests of honor which basically meant they had to drink the most! Sergio suggested that we students should do a little performance or something to represent US culture to these people (eek?! what?!) so, under my direction, we line danced for them at this party! It was totally absurd and all the teenage bolivian boys were like uhhhhwhat. But it was a lot of fun to perform for like 200 people and then get to do some drinking and real dancing!
--Island of the Sun: for all you anthropologists, you can ignore this part if you feel like you know allllll about it. but for everyone else... the Island of the Sun is an island (duh) in the middle of Lake Titicaca (aka lake BP) that was especially sacred to the Inka Empire. Actually, they considered it to be their place of origin in their mythology and the Sapa Inka (king) would make annual pilgrimages there on the solstice or for other important events to make offerings etc. So there are some cool ruins and big carved stone that looks like a puma head and a temple and stuff. There are of course tons of tours and stuff but its cool bc unlike most European tourist attractions, its not for the faint of heart or out of shape. You have to hike for about 45 minutes to get the main sites (on somewhat paved roads, probably originally Inka) up and down hills and stuff. That wasn´t so bad but then to get to the south side of the Island, where your boat picks you up, you hike for 3 hours across some rather large hills, (dare I say mountains?). (Emilie, imagine that mountain in France, but up AND down instead of just up. and more interspersed up then down then up etc. But just as tiring!) But it was a lot of fun and obviously totally worth it because the views were gorgeous and it felt like the top of the world. I can see why the Inka chose it as their mythical origins!!
--Finally, the title of this post. Moquegua. Its in Peru and its where I am now! Moquegua is in the middle of the Atacama desert, one of the driest largest deserts in the world. Luckily for people, its also a mountanous area and the valleys between mountains have glacial rivers running through them, so the valleys are inhabitable. Luckily for archaeologists, the dry climate makes preservation unreal! there are a ton of mummies for this area (the earliest mummies in the world come from about an hourish south of here, in North Chile) which is actaully kinda gross hahah bc alot of the bones I´m studying still have bits of muscle attached. And it smells terrible. Kinda sickly sweet and musky at the same time. Blergh. But, really freakin cool!!!
I´m staying with a sweet family here- a mom and her two kids who are all so nice although talk very very quickly. Needless to say, my spanish is slowly imporving but we still do a lot of miming. The mom is already trying to set me up with her 24 year old son in Arequipa, so its just like being at home. :)
Alright well i´m supposed to be eating lunch so... adios for now! Oh, and I got a cell phone here so if anyone feels like spending money, call me at 953 69 43 42 (tahts exactly what to dial from the US too)!
Saraaaaaaaaaaa
Saturday, June 5, 2010
En el Copa! Copacabana!
Hola!! Estoy en Copacabana!
...which is about all the spanish (or castellano as they call it here for reasons unbeknownst to me!) I´ve picked up! I arrived safely in La Paz early Thursday morning, slept the majority of the day, and met up with the crew to head up to Copacabana. We got some breakfast friday and then ran a few errands (like picking up a hand tailored full suit for Sergio (a Central Michigan Prof who is friends with my advisor) for $100). We got to Copacabana mid-afternoon after an amazing car ride across the countryside btwn La Paz and Copa which included crossing a part of Lake Titicaca on a boat! Our car went across on a ferry type (much more like oregon trail than expected) and we got in a little motor boat and were ferried across. Of course, I put my hand in, just to say I did.
We had a beautiful reception in Copa since Sergio is the new padrino for the graduating high school class and sponsoring their big party/parade/festival tomorrow. About 20 local community leaders showed up at the house laden with flower wreath necklaces (made with real flowers!!), confetti, firecrackers, and lots and lots of beer and coca. We had a good ole traditional Andean feast complete with lots and lots of toasting, pouring some out for Pachamama, and chewin coca. Oh and Mom- good things are coming your way because we selected out the best and most complete coca leaves to burn for our mothers. :) Very cool! As a group of about 20, we polished off 60 24oz bottles of beer! The traditional women around here are the biggest drinkers, its awesome. We spoke with some local kids and taught them some english while they tried to teach us some spanish. So I now know gracioso means funny and that barracho is drunjk. The important things!
Today, I started working in the bone lab. They have 128 burials which no one has looked at since they were excavated so I´m going to try and fly through those in the next few weeks. Sara B, my travel companion to Peru, will proabbly come here on the 15 for a few days and then we´ll head out. But I´ll be sad to leave Copa! Its right on the beach (reminds me of st jean de luz, Em) and totally gorgeous. Tortorro reed boats for tourist pictures make it quite picturesque. I might not ever leave, muahhaha! :)
Alright welp thats all I got for now!! Love and miss all of you, but... I´m having a great time too!!
Love,
Sarita (what the kids here call me I guess...)
...which is about all the spanish (or castellano as they call it here for reasons unbeknownst to me!) I´ve picked up! I arrived safely in La Paz early Thursday morning, slept the majority of the day, and met up with the crew to head up to Copacabana. We got some breakfast friday and then ran a few errands (like picking up a hand tailored full suit for Sergio (a Central Michigan Prof who is friends with my advisor) for $100). We got to Copacabana mid-afternoon after an amazing car ride across the countryside btwn La Paz and Copa which included crossing a part of Lake Titicaca on a boat! Our car went across on a ferry type (much more like oregon trail than expected) and we got in a little motor boat and were ferried across. Of course, I put my hand in, just to say I did.
We had a beautiful reception in Copa since Sergio is the new padrino for the graduating high school class and sponsoring their big party/parade/festival tomorrow. About 20 local community leaders showed up at the house laden with flower wreath necklaces (made with real flowers!!), confetti, firecrackers, and lots and lots of beer and coca. We had a good ole traditional Andean feast complete with lots and lots of toasting, pouring some out for Pachamama, and chewin coca. Oh and Mom- good things are coming your way because we selected out the best and most complete coca leaves to burn for our mothers. :) Very cool! As a group of about 20, we polished off 60 24oz bottles of beer! The traditional women around here are the biggest drinkers, its awesome. We spoke with some local kids and taught them some english while they tried to teach us some spanish. So I now know gracioso means funny and that barracho is drunjk. The important things!
Today, I started working in the bone lab. They have 128 burials which no one has looked at since they were excavated so I´m going to try and fly through those in the next few weeks. Sara B, my travel companion to Peru, will proabbly come here on the 15 for a few days and then we´ll head out. But I´ll be sad to leave Copa! Its right on the beach (reminds me of st jean de luz, Em) and totally gorgeous. Tortorro reed boats for tourist pictures make it quite picturesque. I might not ever leave, muahhaha! :)
Alright welp thats all I got for now!! Love and miss all of you, but... I´m having a great time too!!
Love,
Sarita (what the kids here call me I guess...)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Setting the Scene...
It turns out, a number of people (including my parents and sister...oops) have been asking me where exactly I'm going. Therefore, I thought it would be useful to give y'all some of that info! Plus it'll be way easier to do this from the US than from Bolivia, or at least, I'm not paying for this time as directly here...
Tomorrow, I fly out of DC (where I am now) and into La Paz, Bolivia. (check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_paz). Its the highest altitude capital in the world and is in a part of the Andes called the altiplano. Which basically means, its really really freakin' high. I'll spend a few days- a week there until I at least partially adjust to the altitude and can successfully climb stairs, plus do some exploring of this really cool city! Here, I'll meet up with my friend/colleague Sara Becker and my advisor's colleague Sergio Chavez with whom I will be working.
From there, I tag along with Sergio and his gang of students to Copacabana (not the famed one of song but still. That song will be permanently in my head... be glad you won't be around to hear me humming it constantly!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana,_Bolivia. Copa is on the shores of the best lake in the world, Lake Titicaca, which incidentally means Grey Puma in Aymara, the local Andean language. I'll be gathering some data from some skeletal collections in Copa for my advisor and definately be doing some exploring of the local sites. This town is pretty squarely set on the tourist path of South America, so compared to my prior experiences, this will be posh living!
After being in Copa for 2ish weeks, I'll meet back up with Sara and then we head into Peru together, to a small town in a really cool valley called Moquegua. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moquegua. I'll be doing more labwork here and bumming around seeing stuff. There are a ton of archaeological sites in this valley because it was basically the frontier line between two competing pre-Inca Andean empires, Wari and Tiwanaku, not to mention local people who always lived there. So there's a lot going on! I'll hang out around here and probably head into Arequipa, the 2nd largest city in Peru about 3 hrs away by bus, on weekends. Finally, I fly out of Arequipa on July 28 and arrive back in North Carolina July 29!
Phew, that was long. And I'm supposed to be showering... so... gotta go! Call me by tomorrow at 3 if you want to hear my lovely voice one last time before I leave :) Other than that, next time I'm writing I'll be in Bolivia!!
Love,
Sara
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