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.