THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 16, 1995 TAG: 9510160120
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
Reaching into a khaki-colored specimen cabinet that rises nearly to the ceiling of his narrow rectangular laboratory at the Medical College of Virginia, pathologist Marvin Allison culls several favorites. He holds the capped plastic jars up to the overhead light for a better view.
The containers hold what appear to be dried tree bark, a collection of herbs, maybe a wilted tropical flower or two.
``Here's a heart. Here's a little piece of liver,'' Allison said. ``Here is a piece of lung with an abscess. Here's a stone from the bladder; this individual had tremendous trouble urinating.''
These are no modern medical curiosities, but the mummified remains of the Chinchorro, an ancient people who lived on the coasts of Peru and Chile thousands of years ago. And it is the Chinchorro who, it turns out, one-upped the Egyptians by some 5,000 years in preparing their dead for eternal life.
Tonight, on The Learning Channel, the series ``Archaeology'' profiles the mummy-sleuthing work of Allison, 75, and others who have tried to unravel the mysteries of 10,000-year-old South American mummies. The show examines Chinchorro lives, deaths and the exotic and imaginative burial practices so different from those practiced on the pharaohs.
Allison has a particular interest in the evolution of human disease. Understanding the past - running sophisticated DNA and other biological tests on mummies - promises to aid present-day investigators in understanding how modern ills have evolved and continue to flourish in the Americas.
``What we're doing is reconstructing the history of human disease,'' Allison said. ``This is important, because all things in human existence are cyclic. We're getting new diseases all the time.''
The 1942 William and Mary graduate says his interest in South American mummies dates to 1950, when he began a five-year stay in Peru. At that time, Allison recalled, the robbing of ancient grave sites was a weekend avocation practiced by rich and poor alike.
All that was needed was a long metal pole and a ride out to the desert. Scavengers would walk along, poking holes in the soil, until the pole easily pierced the ground, indicating the presence of an ancient burial chamber.
``Here's a lady selling you vegetables and she gives you change from a vessel 2,000 years old,'' he said. ``You can't live in Peru without developing an interest in archaeology. It's absolutely impossible unless you're completely insensitive.''
Allison's interest intensified over the years, despite his responsibilities as professor of pathology at the medical college, part of Virginia Commonwealth University. By the time Allison retired in 1983, he was eager to return to South America and so accepted a position at the University of Tarapaca, in Arica, Chile.
That's when student Bernardo Arriaza met Allison. Arriaza, a professor of physical anthropology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, has become one of the world's foremost Chilean mummy experts. He, too, will appear on tonight's ``Archaeology'' episode.
``Marvin is an expert in the study of ancient diseases. He was one of the pioneers in the study of South American mummies,'' Arriaza said. ``The foundation has been laid. Now there are many studying in the same or related fields.''
In work spanning nearly four decades, Allison, Medical College of Virginia colleague Enrique Gerszten, Arriaza and others in the United States and Chile have revealed the workings of a complex society in which mummification was quite unlike the kingly glorification found in ancient Egypt.
Among the Chinchorro, the common folk mummified their relatives and those close to them. The mummified remains of infants and dogs also have been unearthed.
The dead, transfigured and reworked through complex Chinchorro post-death rituals, remained with the living for some time before they finally were laid to rest.
``What we're talking about in Egypt is mummification for the benefit of the people who died,'' Allison said. ``In South America mummification was for the benefit of the living.''
Fishing the fertile seas off the arid coasts of Peru and Chile, the Chinchorro usually had plenty to eat. But their lives were hard, and hardly free from disease. Growths on the ear canal from working cold coastal waters year-round, teeth worn down by sand in the shellfish they ate, chronic arthritis, tuberculosis, infections and abscesses that could lead to death are examples of the ills that plagued them.
According to Arriaza, most adults died between 25 and 35. To have reached the age of 50 was to be considered a venerable elder of the tribe.
``Often we have a romantic view of the past: people living in harmony with nature and each other, free of disease with plenty to eat and never abusing the environment,'' Arriaza said. ``That's not how it was. We are destroying these myths of paradise.''
In 1992, Marvin Allison returned to the Medical College on a part-time basis, to teach pathology to dental students. But the mummies call to him still, and so he is planning a trip this December to rural Chile. Allison plans to aid in the examination of some 300 mummies exposed by municipal workers.
``I was bitten by the bug when I was 28. I've always been a history buff,'' he said. ``I am enchanted with pre-Columbian America. All this is absolutely fascinating.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by BILL TIERNAN\The Virginian-Pilot
At the Medical College of Virginia, Marvin Allison keeps many mummy
specimens from ancient Chile. This X-ray is of a mummified
Chinchorro child and two fetuses that date back 4,000 to 5,000
years.
by CNB