16th-Century Skeletons of Children Infected With Smallpox Discovered in Peru [View all]

The toddlers’ remains were buried around the beginning of the Spanish conquest of South America

Sonja Anderson
Daily Correspondent

June 26, 2024

Researchers in Peru have concluded that two toddlers buried in the 16th century were victims of smallpox—specifically, a rare bone infection caused by the smallpox virus. The children died during the Europeans’ early colonization of South America, and their story has shed new light on disease outbreaks in the region.

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The graves provide new insights into colonial influence in the area. For instance, Indigenous individuals were buried with Christian crosses and European glass beads, suggesting attempts at religious conversion.

As historians well know, European colonists brought much more than beads and Christianity to South America. They also carried diseases previously unknown to local communities. One of those was smallpox, a highly contagious sickness that caused millions of deaths over thousands of years before its eradication.

“Smallpox and other novel infectious diseases affected the most vulnerable segments of the Andean north coast population,” write the researchers. Smallpox probably traveled from Europe to Peru with conquistador Francisco Pizarro in the 1530s. By 1620, infectious disease had wiped out over 70 percent of the Indigenous occupants of Peru’s northern coast.

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The skeletons are indicative of a smallpox outbreak on Peru's northern coast. Khrystyne Tschinkel, John Verano, Gabriel Prieto / International Journal of Paleopathology

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-peruvian-indigenous-childrens-bones-were-infected-by-european-smallpox-archaeologists-find-180984573/