Osteological evidence of interpersonal violence at Cañadón Leona 5 (Magallanes, Chile) during the late Holocene

L'HEUREUX G. L; AMOROSI, T.

Necochea, Buenos Aires

Otro; III Paleopathology Association Meeting in South America; 2009

Laboratorio de Ecologia Evolutiva Humana. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires

Cañadón Leona 5 is an archaeological site located on the eastern margin of Laguna Blanca, about 10 km from the Magellan Strait, Magallanes province, República de Chile. The rockshelter was first excavated by the American archaeologist Junius Bird in one field season (1935-1936), recovering two human burials and a number of other archaeological evidence (Bird 1988). Burial 2 is composed by 8 individuals (2 subadults and 6 adults), currently housed at the Anthropology Division, American Museum of Natural History, New York. In this assemblage, two calvaria with compressive trauma were found. Individual CL.2.1 (99.1/770; male, 33-37 years old at age of death) exhibits a circular perforation on left parietal bone, with both external and internal table compromise and some rim remodeling. Individual CL.3 (99.1/771; female, 35-40 years old at age of death) shows a remodeled subcircular open depression on the right parietal, and an associated fracture also compromising the parietal. In both cases it is inferred that these unhealed lesions were related to the circumstances of death. As a working hypothesis, we postulate a relationship between cranial trauma and interpersonal violence in a context of increasing territorial competence between neighboring hunter-gatherer groups at a time (ca. 2300 AP.; Prieto et al. 1988) for which a significant increase in population density can be inferred by means of independent archaeological evidence.