Resumen de Vidas mínimas y muertes anónimas: Arqueología de la salud pública de Chile. La epidemia de cólera en Santiago, siglo diecinueve

Catherine Westfall, Iván Cáceres Roque

• español

  Entre los años 1886 y 1888, la cuarta pandemia de cólera azotó la zona central de Chile, muriendo sobre 28.000 personas en cortos períodos de tiempo. De ese trágico episodio de la historia del país sólo se tenían antecedentes documentales de corte histórico. Desde el punto de vista arqueológico se ha hecho referencia parcial sólo a un lugar en Santiago con víctimas de la enfermedad, conocido éste como cementerio de Coléricos. A raíz de la pandemia, se comenzaron a realizar importantes obras públicas de tipo urbano que apuntaron a mejorar las condiciones de salud pública de la población, todo ello documentado históricamente. Sin embargo, el aporte y evidencia de la arqueología en relación a estos acontecimientos es muy limitado y ello, creemos, constituye una deuda por saldar. En el presente artículo, la conjunción de la investigación archivística histórica junto con la arqueológica permite explorar los desafíos que, desde los puntos de vista teórico, metodológico y técnico este tipo de sitios ofrece a ambas disciplinas.

• English

  The cholera pandemia that affected the central region of Chile between the end of the year 1886 and the beginning of 1888 caused the death of over 28,000 people. Until now, this tragic event had only been registered and studied by documental sources. In 2003, during a highway construction project, what had been known through the archives as the �Cholera cemetery� of the capital city Santiago, was rediscovered. Its localization on the edge of the Mapocho River, which defines and divides the city, had been considered the cause of its probable destruction due to extensive river swells, which commonly affect it during wintertime. Thus, the historical importance of the finding triggered intense �albeit limited- archaeological investigations of the burial zone and its osteological remains in an attempt to socially understand the meaning and reaches of this sanitary emergency. The archaeological and physical anthropology studies of this scant universe �no more than 100 individuals- nonetheless contributed to complement and enrich the documentary evidence of the Cholera cemetery, by means of putting the accent on the death victims themselves and their final destination in contrast to their medical history and treatment while they were alive. The research results also permit us to question the nomenclature and theoretical concept of cemetery versus burial place, as well as to why other cholera inhumation sites in central Chile have not been as yet archaeologically identified and studied. Finally, the evolution through time of public health policies due to the consequences of the cholera epidemics in Chile is also discussed and analyzed in this paper.