Foreigner(?) in a Foreign Land: Multimethod Exploration of the First Decorative Dental Inlay Identified in a Pre-Hispanic Peruvian Context.

This work documents the first unambiguous case of a pre-Hispanic Peruvian with dental inlays--an adult bearing two labially drilled maxillary canines, one of which retains an electrum inlay in situ. Intentional dental modification, occurring in a wide variety of forms, is a geographically and temporally wide-ranging cultural practice. Most commonly identified in Mesoamerica, intentional dental modification has also been reported both ethnohistorically and archaeologically in South America. Most definitive archaeological cases are Ecuadorian, and thus this individual, recovered from a primary ritual center of the Southern Moche State, located in north coastal Peru, presents a unique case. This work employs a microhistorical osteobiographical approach to documenting this individual. To characterize aspects of their life history and the nature of the inlay, enamel was analyzed for carbonate d13C, d18O, 87Sr/86Sr, and 206,7,8Pb/204Pb characterization and dentin for collagen d13C and d15N characterization and accelerator mass spectrometry dating. Inlay composition was analyzed using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Together, these data suggest that the inlaid individual likely migrated to the Moche Valley from Ecuador. The burial context of the skeletal individual's remains and the cultural context of Moche society imply that their unique presentation and connection to Ecuador were important status markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]