August 1st - 2nd 2009

August 1, 2009

Today I left the villa to move to the Peruvian house that I’ll be staying at for the next 4 weeks to do the Osteology research. It was bittersweet leaving the villa. It had become like a home to me.
The Peruvian house was only a few min cab ride from where I had been staying.
THE HOUSE:
The man who owns the house I’m in, Romero, basically owns all the houses on the little cul-de-sac that we’re on. The house is gorgeous! It has tile and hardwood flooring…something I never thought I’d see in Peru. I’m living in one of the houses of one of the richest families in Cusco. They even have servants. We’re served breakfast and dinner at the house. It’s weird to be served. I mean, obviously you’re served in a restaurant, but it’s different when it’s in a house; it’s more formal.
The house I’m in is 3 stories. The living room, kitchen, bedroom where Valerie – my new field director – sleeps, and the dining room are on the first floor. The second floor has about 4 bedrooms, and a sun room, that opens up onto the roof of the first floor. We eat our lunches out there.
I’m on the third floor and share a bedroom with another girl who’s working on the project. We have our own private bathroom, like I did in the villa, which is nice. The rooms are nice sized, and have large windows that have stunning views of cusco.

HOW I GOT INVOLVED:

I had talked to Alexei several times before I left for the archaeological field school back at UCLA. I had wanted to find out a little more information on it. We then chatted about my academic interests, and I told him about my interest in Osteology and Forensic Anthropology. He mentioned that he had a colleague, Valerie Andrushku, who was working on an Osteological project, shortly after the Sacsaywaman field school ended, here in Cusco. He said that she might have room for another undergrad. So, he gave me her contact information and I sent her an email expressing my interest. And, to be brief, I was accepted. This is actually a very small field school, as the other undergrads are getting college credit for this.

THE PEOPLE:
Valerie : She is Alexei Vranich’s colleague, and a professor at Southern Connecticut University with a Ph.D. in Archaeology. She teaches Human Osteology, Ethics in Anthropology, Forensics, and other courses at the university. She has been working in Peru for the past 10 summers, or thereabouts. Firstly as a student in a field school excavating some of the remains that we’re analyzing, then as a T.A., then as Field Director. She essentially inherited the project from her professor. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer professor to work with.
Diana & Adriana: Both are 4th years like me at Southern Connecticut University and students of Valerie. They are sweet and fun girls.
Megan: My roommate at the house, and recent graduate of Southern Connecticut University and former student of Valerie. She’s a super nice person.
Beth Turner: She’s a professor at Georgia State and friend of Valerie. She is here working with the human remains that we are, taking teeth and rib samples, and casting teeth to do isotopic analysis on them. She’ll be looking at diet and evidence for migration based on the results. She’s really funny and great to work with.
Romero: Owner of the house we’re staying at; a very large man, for a Peruvian and very accommodating.
Edgar and Alex: The servants who clean our rooms daily and serve us food. They ‘re very sweet young men.
Seraphina: The cook. Her food is 5 Star quality. I’ve yet to have a meal I dislike. Her soups are TO DIE FOR!

THE PROJECT: We’re doing data analysis on three groups of people: Wari, Inca, and Lucre. Valerie’s main goal is to create a large data base with these people where lots of factors can then be further analyzed. A smaller goal is to determine the extent of empire-organized migration among the places these people occupied in Peru.
A TYPICAL DAY:
We have breakfast at 8am, and meet in the foyer at 8:50am to walk across the small cul-de-sac to one of the other houses Romero owns, to work with the bones. We work in a room on the second floor, and share the house-workspace with two other women who are doing analysis on ceramics.
We have boxes of human remains to go through.
We take one box, and set up the bones of one individual on trays on tables in the room. We organize the bones anatomically, and fill out a Skeletal Remains Data Analysis packet. There’s about 10pages. We go through inventory of the bones that we have, then age and sex the individual based on very factors. We do dental pathology, assuming there are teeth. We’ll look to see the extent of wear on the teeth, if there are any abscesses, carious lesions, etc. We take measurements of the long bones, determine the completeness and condition of the skeleton. The last 2 things we look at are spinal joint disease (only if the individual is an adult) and skeletal pathology: so, evidence of periostitis, extensive porosity, trauma, fratures, eburnation, cranial vault modification, etc. Then we’ll color in the bones that are present on an outline of the skeletal system, and if there’s a modified cranium, we’ll draw the different shape over an outline of a “normally shaped” cranium. Then we put it back into its bag, box it, and move to the next one. We usually end around 5:30pm.