How can bioarchaeology be used to illuminate colonial encounters? Dr. Fabian Crespo (UofL Anthropology) addresses this question in his talk, “Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú: How Osteoimmunology is Reconstructing Hidden Life Histories.” This presentation will discuss the complex biosocial transition in northwest Peru during the colonial process and how new theoretical and methodological approaches can help reconstruct the immune system in past populations. We explore how different immunological profiles recovered from bones and molecules can help show how complex and heterogeneous the biosocial landscapes were before and after colonial transitions, challenging and disputing simplistic and unilinear trajectories of life history changes during colonial encounters.

Dr. Fabian Crespo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Louisville.

“Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú” is presented by the Kentucky Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the UofL Department of Anthropology.