Style and quality of life in San Pedro de Atacama: The subadult skeletons evidence

Author(s)

Pedro José Tótora da Gloria

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Biociências (IBIOC/SB)
• Defense date: 2006-11-13

Examining board members

Walter Alves Neves; Sabine Eggers; Sheila Maria Ferraz Mendonça de Souza

• Advisor: Walter Alves Neves

Abstract

Desert of Atacama region, northern Chile, shows excellent conditions to preserve archaeological remains. A high number of skeletons exumated allows a rich interchange between archaeology and biological anthropology. This study analyzed subadult skeletons from San Pedro de Atacama. The sample is composed by 90 subadult skeletons (less than twenty years) from three burial sites: Solcor-3, Coyo-3 e Quitor-6; they are dated from between 250 to 1240 A.D. Style and biological quality of life were infered throught eight osteological markers. Two approaches were carried out in this study: comparison of style and biological quality of life between Atacameneans prehistoric periods and world-wide groups. The first compared four prehistoric periods of San Pedro: before the influence of Tiwanaku Empire, peak of Tiwanaku influence, final period of Tiwanaku influence and after Tiwanaku influence. The main hypothesis tested in this approach is the significative improvement of biological quality of life in San Pedro de Atacama during the peak of Tiwanaku influence. The second approach joined the skeletons from the four periods in a single sample. These data caracterized the biological quality of life of Atacameneans subadults. The aim was testing if the biological quality of life in San Pedro de Atacama would be within the variation found in agricultural subsistence strategy. The results of the periods\' comparison show that only caries frequencies corroborated the main hypothesis, while the other markers presented a variable pattern. Results of the world-wide analysis showed that San Pedro is within the range of agriculture category. However, it was found out that, except for caries, the osteological markers showed high variation in different world-wide populations within the same subsistence strategy. Caries, abscess and hypoplasias in San Pedro de Atacama were above the world-wide agricultural mean, while porotic hyperostosis, infections and traumas were below. In brief, it was found a complex pattern, in which each osteological marker responds to a particular group of natural and cultural characteristics of the prehistory of Atacamenean population. (AU)