Ossuary of San Francisco Church, Quito, Ecuador: Human Skeletal Biology

Abstract

As part of the Columbus quincentenary activities, the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural del Ecuador (INPCE) and the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional (AECI) attempted to study and restore the Convento de San Francisco de Quito, a facility founded in 1535. In 1990, these efforts included excavation of the central ossuary in the church. This research generated information about the structure of the ossuary as well as human remains. Detailed analysis of the human remains by the authors revealed the presence of at least 226 individuals from five spatial components of the ossuary. The remains likely date from the early history of the church in the sixteenth century to the twentieth century.<br/>Analysis of the five ossuary samples revealed information on mortuary customs, ancestry, cranial and postcranial morphology, living stature, and bone and dental pathology. Most of the data reported herein fall within ranges previously reported from prehistoric and historic samples. Exceptions consist of high values of skeletal trauma, carious lesions, and antemortem loss of teeth reported for some of the ossuary samples.