Negotiating Death: Indigenous Mortuary Responses to Spanish Colonialism in Peru

Monday, June 8, 2026 - 6 pm MT (Hybrid)

Speaker: Catherine Gaither, PhD Upper Iowa University

Our meetings are free and open to the public. Members will receive the Zoom link by email. If you are not a member and would like to attend this talk, please contact us to receive the Zoom link.

Location: Englewood Public Library, Perrin Room, 1000 Englewood Parkway, Englewood, CO 80110. The library is located on the first floor of the Englewood Civic Center Building (Google Map Link). The Civic Center Building can be reached via S. Broadway, W. Hampden Ave and S. Santa Fe Drive. There is free parking accessible from S. Inca Street (enter the building on the 1st floor) and S. Jason Street (enter the building on the 2nd floor and take stairs/elevator to 1st floor). Public transit is also available at the nearby Englewood Light Rail Station and Bus Transfer Loop (Parking and Public Transit Link). For public transit information, please visit RTD's Trip Planner Web Page.

Abstract:

This presentation examines mortuary evidence from three Peruvian archaeological sites dating to the Spanish conquest and its immediate aftermath, exploring how Indigenous communities navigated dramatic shifts in health and burial practice during this period of profound upheaval. At Puruchuco-Huaquerones, a comparison of prehistoric and post-contact burials reveals measurable declines in population health alongside significant transformations in mortuary behavior following European contact. At Magdalena de Cao Viejo, within the El Brujo complex, burials recovered beneath the floor of a colonial-era Catholic church constructed as part of a reducción settlement demonstrate the creative agency of Indigenous inhabitants, who wove traditional Andean burial customs into newly imposed Catholic frameworks. Finally, analysis of a post-contact mass burial at Yosumal sheds light on the more disruptive end of this spectrum, where conventional mortuary treatment appears to have broken down entirely, perhaps in response to an epidemic. Taken together, these three sites offer a multi-scalar view of colonial-period death in Peru, from individual adaptation and cultural negotiation to population-level health crisis and underscore the value of bioarchaeological and mortuary analysis for understanding lived experience under colonialism.

Bio:

Catherine Gaither is a bioarchaeologist and forensic anthropologist whose fieldwork spans sites in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Colorado. Her research focuses on non-adult health and population-level shifts in health and mortuary practice before and during the colonial period, with particular attention to the ways Indigenous communities in the Andes navigated biological and cultural change in the wake of Spanish conquest. She has published widely on these topics and currently teaches anthropology at Upper Iowa University.