H
HEALTH AND ILLNESS
Even before the European diseases introduced by the Spanish conquistadors
during their invasion of the Inca Empire decimated the populations of the
Central Andes, the Incas contended with and survived rare and endemic diseases
and ailments, as well as the typical afflictions of many living peoples (see
Diseases, Foreign). The most direct line of evidence of Inca health and illness
comes from skeletonized and mummified human remains, but ethnohistorical
sources have also provided complementary details about health and illness that
are not recorded on Inca human remains.
Inca health and illness varied widely by geographic location and proximity to
the Inca capital, either within the core of the Inca Empire, the periphery of the
Inca heartland, or in the provinces some distance from the capital. Because Inca
imperial policies and practices varied within and between different regions, some
communities may have benefited from greater access to foodstuffs and dietary
diversity and from lower tribute demands and workloads, which would have
contributed to positive health outcomes and stronger immunity to diseases. Other
communities may have had reduced access to dietary diversity and foodstuffs
and higher tribute demands, which may have negatively affected their health and
increased their susceptibility to disease. Bioarchaeological investigations of
human remains from Cuzco have demonstrated that these people were generally
very healthy with few skeletal indicators of physiological stress, and no evidence
of nutritional deficiencies, chronic diarrheal disease, or parasitic infections. The
people from Cuzco, however, did show higher frequencies of one type of skeletal
indicator of physiological stress: osteoperiostitis, a nonspecific inflammation of
the outer tissue surrounding bone (periosteum), which may have resulted from
the more urban and crowded conditions in Cuzco.
In contrast, communities from the peripheries of the Inca heartland showed
slightly higher frequencies of skeletal indicators of physiological stress, as well
as higher frequencies of degenerative joint disease. This suggests that labor
demands by the Inca state may have been higher for these peripheral
communities, but that physiological stress was not significantly greater. The few
bioarchaeological investigations of communities living in the provinces of the