South American mummies

South America's climate primarily explains the existence of the largest set of mummies in the world, out of Egypt. Andean cultures understood these conditions and took advantage of them, developing technical strategies that benefited from natural dehydration in different ways - mostly to preserve food -, among which mummification was an ancient and paramount trait. Over the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, large bioarchaeological collections originating from this part of the world reached local and distant universities and museums. Studies on those collections have supported the development of important theoretical concepts of modern archaeology, such as the rise of agriculture, sedentarism, civilization, and disease More recently, mummy studies have deepened into the description of population size problems that affect people today too, either locally, such as the case of arseniasis, or worldwide, as it is the case with atherosclerosis. Regarding arsenic pollution, its effect in people might have triggered the creation of the oldest mummy-making tradition in the world among the Chinchorro. In the case of atherosclerosis, its description among ancient peoples came as a revelation against the long-held notion of being a "disease of modernity." Finally, soul searching still affects everyone involved in mummy studies due to the tragic loss of valuable collections over the National Museum of Brazil fire. New and known ways to deal with these risks should be considered in all collections, including the display of replicas.