Morbidity and Mortality in Ancient Ecuador: Evidence From the Coastal Site of Salango

Archaeological excavations at Salango, on the central coast of Ecuador, have produced human skeletal material dating from ca. 1500 BC to AD 1531. The time range represented by the remains offers an extraordinary opportunity to examine temporal change in ancient coastal Ecuadorian patterns of morbidity and mortality. Statistics resulting from study of the skeletal material are shaped by sampling, site function, and other factors, but generally reveal increasing morbidity and mortality. Such increase was likely related to sedentism as well as to population size and density.