A 16th-century cemetery in Peru holds the remains of two toddlers whose skeletons still show the devastating impact of smallpox in the early-colonial period. The rare find may hold key information about the earliest infectious diseases related to European colonization, according to a new study.
Recent archaeological excavations at Huanchaco, a small fishing town on the northwest coast of Peru, revealed a cemetery associated with a colonial church that was one of the earliest in the region, built by the Spanish between 1535 and 1540. The 120 burials that represent the early-colonial population there reflect the initial cultural changes of colonialism around 1540, with reed crosses and European-introduced glass beads included in the graves of Indigenous people.
