Jordi Armani Rivera Prince

This project focuses on the study of the emergence of social inequality in small-scale maritime communities in the ancient Andes. For this purpose, I analyze human remains and mortuary contexts from the La Iglesia Site (Moche Valley, North Coast of Peru), a cemetery of a small-scale fishing community during the late Early Horizon (400-200 cal. B.C.). Although most research in this period focuses on settlement patterns and architecture analysis, more recent emphasis on domestic settings investigates inequality within groups as part of large social systems revealing important information on past social dynamics. However, little is known concerning how the emergence of inequality affected peoples? daily lives in this region from the perspective of human skeletons and their burial contexts. This project documents skeletal markers of health, lifestyle, nutrition, and stress to investigatepotential indicators of social inequality. I examine the mortuary contexts and grave goods to understand if (and if so, how) social distinction correlates with embodied inequality at La Iglesia, and if social inequality is expressed in the bioarchaeological and material remains of the late Early Horizon. Ultimately, this approach enhances our anthropological understanding of the emergence of social inequality from the perspective of individuals in small-scale communities.