In Society's Shadow: Identifying Structural Violence in MUNA, a Burial Community from Late Intermediate Period (1100 - 1470 CE) Pachacamac, Peru.
Abstract
Structural violence (SV) highlights how social structures harm communities via inequities in health, risk of trauma, and post-mortem treatment, however its applicability outside of Euroamerican capitalist contexts is unclear. Fifty-nine individuals from the MUNA cemetery (Pachacamac, Perú) from the Late Intermediate to Late Horizon Periods (1100-1532 CE) were analysed for evidence of SV. Nonspecific stress markers, osteoarthritis, pathological dental conditions, and physical trauma were recorded and compared as they related to age, sex and/or status and then contextualised using the Spanish Chronicles, ethnographic, and archaeological research. Inequities in resource or labour distribution but not amount to SV, but SV did operate through physical trauma; two nonadults were victims of human sacrifice and tinku. Analytically, SV is useful in non-Euromerican contexts, but its effectiveness will be negatively impacted by the amount and type of contextual evidence available, and social complexity will determine where SV will develop.