Multiple metastasis in hunter-gatherers from argentine pampean region.

BOSIO, L., ARANDA, C., LUNA, L. Y M. BERÓN

Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Congreso; Paleopathology Association Meeting in South America; 2005

Paleopathology Association

Chenque I site in a prehistoric cemetery located in La Pampaprovince, in the western Pampean Region. This site was used by hunter-gatherer groups during the Final Late Holocene, throughout at least 700 years. Up to this moment 33 burial structures have been excavated. Great variability in mortuary modalities of inhumation have been recorded (simple, multiple, primary, secondary burials, and also some variants not previously registered in the region). Moreover, through the evaluation of several biological and cultural aspects, the way of living of these groups has been investigated. Several pathologies have been identified in this cemetery. Burial N° 12 contains a skeleton of an adult male. It shows multiple pathological lesions, compatible with those originated by a neoplastic disease. These lesions have been analyzed using several methodological strategies: macroscopic, radiological and microscopic. This is the first time that this kind of disease is identified from a prehistoric burial in Argentina. In this presentation the localization and characteristics of the lesions are evaluated, and different neoplastic diseases that could have produce them are discussed. Since the people buried in this cemetery belonged to groups that had a high logistic mobility, it is a key issue to infer the consequences that this kind of disease could have produce in the dynamic of the group in which this person lived, because of his gradual health and physical strength deterioration.