Anna Fancher Whittemore

ANNA WHITTEMORE, then a graduate student at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, was approved funding in April 2023 to aid research on “Lives of the Mitmaqkuna: The Bioarchaeology of Inka-Era Resettlement in Huancasancos, Peru,” supervised by Dr. Matthew Velasco. Funding assisted archaeological fieldwork in Peru in Fall 2023 and subsequent field-lab analyses, storage, and finally, transportation of excavated materials to their current location at the offices of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture in Ayacucho. The original research plan centered on understanding the life experiences of individuals forcibly resettled by the Inka Empire through bioarchaeology: the analysis of human skeletal remains from archaeological contexts. However, over the course of this project, the grantee identified that the excavated archaeological sites were used earlier than expected Inka (ca. 800–1300 CE), during the decline and collapse of the Wari Empire, which is often considered a predecessor to the Inka. Thus, these findings shed light on mobility patterns and life experiences of 611 individuals who lived and died in the time leading up to the rise of the Inka. Specifically, individuals who lived during Wari hegemony experienced less violence, accidental injury, and minor forms of metabolic stress than their successors. Migration was uncommon throughout time, but women were more likely to migrate, sometimes making temporary journeys to the coast. In contrast, all men who migrated into the community met with violent deaths, hinting at strongly gendered mobility practices.