MEXICO CITY.- The skeletal remains of women buried at Mexico City’s former Convent of San Jerónimo are challenging long-held assumptions about who was admitted to one of New Spain’s religious communities. A new study of nuns who lived at the convent between the 16th and 19th centuries indicates that the congregation was considerably more diverse than surviving historical records had suggested.

The findings are presented in The Hieronymite Nuns of Mexico City, 16th to 19th Centuries: An Osteometric Study, a book co-published by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana. The volume was presented during the 37th International Anthropology and History Book Fair.

Historical sources had generally portrayed the convent as a community made up primarily of Spanish and Creole women. But physical analysis of skeletal remains recovered from the site points to a much broader population, including women identified by the researchers as mestiza, Indigenous, Afro-descendant and Asian.

The study is based on remains of individuals buried between 1585 and 1878 in two areas of the former convent. One group came from an area known as the Parking Lot, associated with burials dating from approximately 1585 to 1625. A second group was recovered from the Lower Choir and represents a later period extending through 1878.

Researchers examined cranial morphology and compared individuals across chronological groups. Morphoscopic observations were followed by craniometric measurements and statistical analysis, allowing the team to evaluate differences within the sample and test whether multiple population groups were represented.





According to the authors, the observed craniofacial patterns included individuals classified as Spanish, mestiza/Spanish, mestiza/Indigenous and Indigenous, along with isolated examples interpreted as Asian, of mixed African ancestry, and Indigenous individuals displaying intentional cranial modification.

For researcher Josefina Bautista Martínez, the results provide evidence that admission to the religious order was not restricted to Spanish women or their daughters.

“Historical sources said that only Hispanic women were accepted, but physical anthropology, through the skeletal remains, demonstrated that this was not the case,” Bautista Martínez said. She suggested that access to financial resources may have been more important for entry into the convent than ancestry alone.

The research brings together specialists from several institutions. Contributors include Bautista Martínez and Mauro de Ángeles Guzmán of INAH’s Directorate of Physical Anthropology; Pablo Neptali Monterroso Rivas of the INAH Morelos Center; independent researcher David Alberto Torres Roldán; and the late physical anthropologist María Teresa Jaén Esquivel, a pioneer in the study of the collection.

The skeletal material itself was recovered during archaeological rescue work undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s, providing researchers with an unusually extensive biological record of women who inhabited the convent over nearly three centuries.

Paula Mues Orts, professor and researcher at Mexico’s National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography, described the book as an example of how highly specialized physical anthropology can be combined with social history. In her view, the convent offers a particularly valuable microcosm in which documentary evidence can be compared with information preserved in human remains.

The study also moves beyond questions of ancestry. Abigail Meza Peñaloza of UNAM’s Institute of Anthropological Research noted that skeletal evidence can reveal aspects of physical activity and living conditions inside the convent. Researchers also identified indications that women suffering from illnesses, injuries or serious congenital conditions survived with the help of social support networks within the community.

Seen in this way, the remains become more than archaeological specimens. They offer evidence of individual lives shaped simultaneously by religious discipline, social hierarchy, health, work and community.

As Meza Peñaloza observed, the skeletons can be read as “biological documents,” opening a different route into the experiences of women whose lives were largely recorded through institutional and religious sources.

The new volume therefore adds a physical dimension to the history of the former Convent of San Jerónimo, revealing a community that was more socially and biologically varied than the written record alone had led scholars to believe.