The cemetery of the old Salesian Mision “La Candelaria” (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina)

GARCÍA LABORDE, PAMELA; SUBY, JORGE A.; GUICHÓN, RICARDO; VELÁZQUEZ, NADIA J.; BURRY, LIDIA S.; PALACIO, PATRICIA I.; SEGURA, MARIANA; IBAÑEZ, ALEJANDRA

Necochea, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Congreso; III Paleopathology Association Meeting in South America; 2009

Universidad del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires

The Native-European contact process in Tierra del Fuego constitutes a complex phenomenon temporally as well spatially. In 2005, we started studying the health-llness process in the north of the Great Island of Tierra del Fuego at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, specifically in the Salesian Mission “La Candelaria (Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). The first analyses from historic documents conducted by Casali (2008) suggested that tuberculosis was the main cause of death among natives, and allows generating expectations about diet, activity, health and mobility. The aim of this work is to present the bioarchaeological and paleopathological results obtained from human bone remains of the nine individuals recovered in the fieldworks in 2009 in the sector “superficie 1” of the salesian cemetery of “La Candelaria”, and the two individuals recovered in earlier fieldworks. Moreover, some palinological results obtained from sediment samples of abdominal cavities are presented. The results of stable isotopes in two individuals agreed with the values available from native populations of pre contact periods in the north of Tierra del Fuego. The paleopathological results showed lesions attributed to unspecific infectious processes (periostitis), and systemic stress indicators (Harris´ lines, trabecular bone alterations, hipoplasia of dental enamel, hyperostosis porotica, and criba orbitalia) possibly as a result of nutritional metabolic disorders. Also, osteoarticular lesions were registered, principally in axial skeleton. Lesions of specific infections, as tuberculosis and other respiratory pathologies, were not found.