Bioarchaeology

It has certainly been an interesting and extremely educational couple of weeks since the last time that I wrote. First of all, I made it to Chiclayo Peru safely. Unfortunately, my luggage did not follow me. In Guayaquil Ecuador, where I switched flights to fly down to Lima, my one piece of luggage was not transferred, most likely because I was the only person to switch flights, so my bag continued on to Quito Ecuador while I flew south.

Upon arrival in Lima I was held up in baggage claim for a couple of hours filing a lost luggage claim. Due to the fact that I had no permanent address or phone number to give them, things were not sorted as easily as they might otherwise have been. The claim people left me with a number to call when I found a hotel to stay in upon my arrival in Chiclayo. They advised that I call as soon as I had an address and phone number that I could give them. So I boarded my flight and flew back up north again to the city of Chiclayo.

I soon found a nice little hotel and I booked 3 nights with them in hopes that it would be sufficient time to have my bag returned to me. As soon as I checked in, I called the airline company. They told me what had happened with the bag and said it would be delivered the next day to my hotel. That was a bit of a relief, though I would not relax until my bag was in hand. I don’t know what I would have done had I not got it back.

The next day came and I called again. They told me the next fight that it could arrive on would be at 8 pm. The time came and went. Nothing. I decided to leave it until morning. In the morning my backpack was still missing.

By midday I decided to take things into my own hands and walked to the airport where I found everyone sitting on their backsides doing nothing. When I presented my problem, they casually walked off to another room and brought the bag out to me. I was rather distraught knowing that it had arrived the previous day and that they were far from being busy, yet appeared to care little about the fact that I was living without my stuff. Nonetheless, I truly was grateful to have my stuff in hand and to be able to get cleaned up and into different clothes. I had been in the same everything since Sat and it was now Tues afternoon. What good is a shower if you just put on dirt. What a bother.

Now let me describe my arrival to Chiclayo. Upon approach you could see that everything for miles in all directions was dry forest and desert. The city was as brown as the sand around the outskirts. As the plane stopped, I noticed that it was the only plane in the entire little airport. I also noticed that half of the airport seemed to be some sort of military airbase that shared the runways. There were hangers everywhere with nothing in them, and as I mentioned before, no other planes or jets or even military personnel. I assumed maybe the base was no longer in service. I found out later that it is an active airbase and there are apparently a couple of migs stationed there.

Anyway, they rolled the stairs up to the 737 and as I walked down them and across the tarmac I had my camera out and was filming. The next thing I knew I was getting yelled at to turn off the camera. Oops J. I guess they don’t like people filming their awesome military power.

The city of Chiclayo is fairly clean as cities in South America go. There is still a lot of trash and pollution, but not too bad. My first couple of experiences with the public seemed rather unfriendly. As I walked up on a crowd along a sidewalk and asked a guy what was going on, he looked at me like I was crazy and then mumbled something as he quickly moved away from me. Hmmm, strange.

I continued walking the streets and came to the Plaza de las Armas where I found a much larger crowd and saw that there was a flag ceremony going on with all of the military and police being all official. So I naturally wondered if this was a special day or if they did this every night? Well, I asked a guy, and once again I got the same look of disgust, but this guy didn’t even give me the satisfaction of a grunt. He just looked at me with this scowl on his face. I asked again, but rather then answer, he too turned and walked away. I was beginning to wonder if everyone here was rude to foreigners or if I was just the lucky one.

I have come to realize since then that it truly was dumb luck and the people are good and kind people for the most part.

One thing I do find interesting here is the huge lack of dogs. You will understand what I mean if you have been to any of these types of countries.

Anyway, on Tues., after my luggage arrived, I took a trip out to the Ferrenafe where the National Museum of Sican is located. There I met with Dr. Haagen Klaus, a bioarchaeologist and professor of anthropology and biology at Utah Valley University. After discussing a few things, he put me right to work for the next several hours at a desk freeing a human skull from the dirt and clay matrix that encased it. It is a delicate job and should only be done with a small stick and a brush. Strangely, I actually really enjoyed it.
It’s like a small discovery as you dig through the encasement and a human skull slowly comes into shape. I love detail work. I guess it’s the artist in me.

The next morning I showed up at 8 a.m. as I have every morning since and often earlier and worked primarily as a personal assistant to Dr. Klaus. We mostly examined boxes of unidentified bones and identified them as human or nonhuman along with what bone the piece pertained to. We would then analyze if there were any abnormalities or pathology that could be derived from what we saw.
It’s really quite fascinating and amazing the things you can decipher from human remains, even when they are hundreds of years old.

There are 5 other students in the lab and they have been out here in the field working with Dr. Klaus for the past month and a half. They are all great people and easy to get along with. They are also incredibly hard workers and much further along in this field than myself. This should not come as a surprise since this is what they are all pursuing as careers. My only saving grace is my knowledge of anatomy (which has increased immensely since working here), and my willingness to work hard, long days.

After dinner each night, Dr. Klaus and I would return to the lab and work an additional 2 or 3 hours longer. Thanks to my father, I have a very solid work ethic and am used to working long hours. One of the other main things I do with Dr. Klaus if measure dental biodistance, from which information we can derive a fairly accurate assessment of relation amongst the different burials. After getting done with all of the comingled remains we moved onto boxes containing mostly complete skeletal remains found in specific burials and analyzed them.

On my first Fri., Dr. Daniel Fairbanks, an Associate Dean in the science dept. at UVU, a book author, published geneticist, and a well-known artist arrived. His purpose in coming down was considerably different than ours. With the use of a device designed by, I believe he said Leonardo De Vinci, he was able to sculpt, with exactness, replicas of several of the skulls that have been excavated. Then, back in the States, he can sculpt muscles and skin onto them and thus recreate a likeness of what the person may have looked like when they were alive. This process is often used in forensics. I have seen some of his work and it is stunning what he can do. There are many museums in the area of northern Peru and I was blessed with the opportunity to accompany him and Dr. Klaus to several of them. He did skull replications for 4 of them. One of the replications will be indicative of one of the Lords of Sipan. It will be fascinating to see the results. The chance to rub shoulders and work side by side with these well known experts in their fields, along with several other well known archaeologists here in Peru is truly unprecedented and an opportunity that few will ever have. A blessing above and beyond my expectations.

For those of you who do not know, which I suspect is most of you, the Sican are a more ancient people than the Inkas by several hundreds of years. The Sican were first established sometime around 700 or 800 AD and were stronk until around 1100 or 1200 AD. The Inkas came a couple of hundred years later.

In the past two and a half weeks I have been to many museum backrooms and labs. I have seen artifacts that have been seen by few eyes and will most likely never be displayed for public viewing. I have had my own personal archaeologist as my tour guide through many museums and at many archaeological sites (An experience that I wish I could duplicate at all museums).

I have explored several massive pyramids in the area and have excavated human remains from burials at the bases of them. I participated in the excavation of the largest mass burial site of its kind, containing over 170 human skeletons so far, with the final count expected to be much higher. I have dug in 30 ft deep pits with scorpions and spiders along side me. I have been bitten by countless mosquitoes in very hot and humid weather. I have seen and experienced things that few will ever have or take the opportunity to live, but most importantly, I have fulfilled a childhood dream of being Indiana Jones.

Some videos

This is Mike's brother posting. These are some short videos Mike took on his trip to Iguazu falls, and a little bit of tango. We're still curious about the full story of finding the tango dancers and then "performing." I'm posting most of the videos and photos on Mike's blog, and the videos I've been converting from the full 1080 HD to a small mobile format for quicker uploads and viewing. The HD is much more impressive, especially of the falls.

-Chris

Mision Buenos Aires Oeste

I find myself typing this in an interesting location. I’m sitting in an airport in Guayaquil Ecuador because of a layover. I flew out of Buenos Aires this afternoon (Sat 2nd), and ended up here at 9:30 this evening. My flight at 7 a.m. will then take me back down to southern Peru where I will have a 5 hour layover in Lima from which I will catch my final flight back up to Northern Peru and arrive in Chiclayo tomorrow evening. I will have flown over my destination twice before finally landing on the third pass. Ridiculous.

So, the mission was incredible! Nearly three weeks of physically exhausting, frequently uncomfortable, and often mentally draining hard, hard work. I wouldn’t trade it for the world and in fact, I traded the world for it. If I were to share all of the spiritually saturated experiences I had in that short time, I would fill a good twenty pages. Instead, I will tickle your taste buds with a handful of special spiritually uplifting experiences to show a little about the life of a servant of the Lord. Before I do that, I will share a little about the incredible spiritual giants I was blessed with the privilege of serving alongside. First off, as you may know, my fulltime mission was in Guatemala years ago. So, I ask you, was it a coincidence that one of the two elders in the other companionship in our apt just happened to be the only Guatemalan in the mission? I think God knew I needed someone to translate the Argentine castellano into Guatemalan Spanish for me so I wouldn’t offend anyone ha ha. Elder Ponce is one of the most bold, courageous and faithful missionaries I’ve met, with a passion for the work and a smile that lights up a room. Elder Streadbeck, his companion, is only surpassed in physical height by his spirit and a heart big enough that the whole world could feel his love for them and he’d still have love to spare. He’s been in the field only a couple of months and already speaks Spanish better than many missionaries do after an entire mission! Now last, but most certainly not the least, is my own companion Elder Lopez. Elder Lopez is a half Mexican that didn’t speak any Spanish until the mission. No worries, he speaks it now, and quite well I might add. What can I say about the man who trained me? Elder Lopez was the District Leader and was an incredible example of not only obedience (which we all know I need. J), but he was the perfect example of a leader who demands no more than he himself is willing and capable of giving. A leader whom I saw on many occasion share a greater love for those elders under his stewardship than many people in places of higher authority. The care and concern he felt for those elders might only be surpassed by his faith in the promises God has made through His servants such as President Carter, the mission president. The man showed me everyday, unintentionally, how close he is to the Spirit by sharing scriptures perfect for each individual we spoke with. Truly, these are men of God and I found myself humbled in many instances to be in the presence of these and other soldiers of our Father in Heaven. Indeed, in a Zone Conference, the Spirit overwhelmed this body and I was left with only the ability to allow the tears to flow as they sang their title hymn of “Called To Serve”. What a blessing I was granted. Truly it was an unprecedented and a once in a lifetime opportunity.

My mission was filled with moments where in spite of my not knowing these people, the Lord used me as a mouthpiece to share just the right experiences with the people at just the right time and in many instances I was privileged to see the Spirit touch their hearts deeply, bringing many to tears. I can testify that the spirit of forgiveness worked in many hearts as we preached the gospel of repentance. I was granted the opportunity to witness young Fidel as he begins the lineage of the true followers of Christ in his immediate family by being baptized by his 17 year old cousin Alvaro who is the first in his immediate family to do the same! Awesome! We got Mary to come back to church after many years of inactivity and because of that, her daughters Mariana and Leila will soon be baptized! Incredible! Estela, a widow with her two daughters has committed to baptism in two weeks after having read the Book of Mormon faithfully and recognizing its divine nature! How cool is that?! Then we have Veronica who is only waiting to be married in order to be baptized! She already considers herself a member! The field is white my dear friends, just thrust in that sickle already!

I served in an area called Moreno. It primarily covered a very poor area with mostly dirt or rather muddy roads, since it either rained or was cloudy nearly every day I was there. We worked nonstop everyday, walking quickly to each house so as to help the greatest amount of people we could. Weekly we would speak to over 150 people in the streets and on the buses and trains. Fear of speaking to strangers is a luxury a missionary must live without. On more than one occasion we would speak to entire buses both cumulatively and then individually. My first week in the field I had a cold and my feet were covered in blisters that I kept finding for the next two weeks since my shoes didn’t fit nor were they designed for that. They, along with all of my missionary clothing were borrowed. This last week I also had stomach flu, but with all of these things, the work must always go on. When you know you have something so special that everyone needs, these are just petty annoyances.

Everyday a missionary wakes up at 6:30 am and begins his day with exercise until 7 and then food and getting cleaned up until 8.
Then he studies the scriptures, both modern and old to increase the Spirit’s ability to use him/her as a tool. From 9-10am the companionship studies together from the inspired manual Preach My Gospel so they can better understand how to deliver the messages properly and effectively to the anxiously awaiting ears. For the last half hour before hittin the dirt they study the language in order to make sure nothing will stand in the way of a clear communication of the Spirit to the hearts of those willing to accept. The faithful missionary then steps out into the field and speaks to every man, woman, and child of the truths that will bring salvation and pure happiness. He does this for the next 11 hours or so when they finally return home only to sit down for 30 minutes and plan how to be most efficient and effective in the following day and what the needs of each individual investigator are so that they can meet them and prepare them for the waters of baptism. Then, if you are like my comp, and have the task of being a District or Zone Leader, you spend whatever precious little time you have left til lights out, calling every missionary under your stewardship and making sure all is in order. Personal time…what’s that?

The chance to step into the field again with the experiences I’ve had, allowed me to hopefully reach some people who may have been more difficult to reach. At the very least, I pray I was more than just a companion. If no one else was changed or affected by my service, I certainly was and I thank my God frequently that I was able to meet and interact with such incredible members like Vanesa who helped us out day in and day out. She has only been a member for months, but the fire is so powerful inside her it is nearly impossible to avoid ignition. I thank her and many others for the example of what we all should be.

Well, I have written enough for now and must attempt to sleep in this airport. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27