Violence and trauma in the Wari heartland : a study of one civilization's treatment of their people

Abstract

The Wari civilization lasted from A.D. 600 ? 1000, in central Peru. They conquered other cultures during their reign, and their power spread from their capital city, Huari. However, little data has been compared to study the physical treatment of their people. In this paper, the trauma studied in the bones of the Wari people were compared with age, gender, and social status, respectively. This study shows that violence was seen in both sexes, but more so in the male population. However, 25% of the female population showed trauma, indicating that females could have possibly been involved in warfare, or more likely, ritualistic violence. When studying trauma by age, the age ranges that showed that violence was more common in young and mid-adults, although most of the trauma had healed, indicating that most of the attacks were nonlethal. However, due to the large sample size of the unaged adults, it was difficult to specifically see if trauma was more present in one age than another. Lastly, when studying burial treatments, it was concluded that intermediate and ruling elites had significantly less trauma than the general population, as well as fewer diseases and malnutrition. While there was not a lot of data to use for this particular study, it does seem evident that the elites had better treatment and less experience with violent situations. While more research still needs to be conducted, this study is a good start in understanding how the Wari treated their people.