ALTERNATIVE METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES IN SEX DETERMINATION OF COMMINGLED AND FRAGMENTARY HUMAN REMAINS: AN EXAMPLE FROM THE ARGENTINE PAMPEAN REGION

LUNA, L.

Trends in Physical Anthropology

Nova Science Publishers

Lugar: Nueva York; Año: 2010; p. 1 - 48

Sex determination of human skeletal and dental remains is a very important step in palaeodemographic reconstructions. This information can be easily obtained if skeletons are complete and well preserved, but problems arise when the sample contains fragmented and/or commingled remains. In these cases alternative methodological procedures must be achieved, taking into account the population-specific variability in sexual dimorphism and the degree of robustness of the skeletal sample. In this chapter an unconventional methodology applied to a sample of removed human remains from the Chenque I site (Lihué Calel National Park, La Pampa province, Western Pampean Region, Argentina) is described andanalyzed. This site is a prehistoric cemetery used by hunter-gatherer societies during the Final Late Holocene, throughout 700 years. It has two clearly defined units with very different characteristics. The Superior Unit (0–30 cm depth) contains thousands of bony and dental remains with different degrees of fragmentation, comminglement, arrangement and anatomic association. In the Inferior Unit (below 30 cm) 42 burials were detected, many of them associated with subsuperficial stone structures. To this moment a preliminary MNI of 216 was estimated. In order to obtain sex information from the commingled sample, metric techniques of numerous bones (for example, first rib, hand, foot and long bones) and teeth were applied. Previously, the applicability of each technique was tested in a control sample (complete burials from the Chenque I site and Tapera Moreira Locality) comparing the more reliable results obtained analyzing the morphology of the os coxae and the skull, and the diameters of the humerus and femur heads, with the alternative metric ones. The results are very satisfactory because it was possible to obtain data of 19 individuals, totaling 44 adults, with gender information for the whole site. As a consequence of this it is possible to affirm that the osteological samples that include elements of many individuals without anatomical integrity offer very important data to develop reliable mortality profiles.