Variación Craneofacial de los Primeros Habitantes de las Pampas Argentinas: Implicancias para el Poblamiento de América

MENENDEZ, L.; BONOMO, M.; MESSINEO, P.; GONZÁLEZ, M.; POLITIS, G.; PÉREZ, I.

De Como Cruzar fronteras en la ciencia. Homenaje a Hector M. Pucciarelli

CONICET-CENPAT

Lugar: Puerto Madryn; Año: 2017; p. 1 - 26

Craniofacial comparisons between the earliest and latest human skeletons of Americahave suggested the existence of a complex scenario underlying the biologicalevolution of American populations. Particularly, these studies proposed migratoryprocesses -physical movement of large number of people across the space- as themain factor behind the craniofacial variation in America. At the end of 19th andthe early 20th centuries, Florentino Ameghino initiated the discussions on the highantiquity of humans and their ancestors on the extensive grasslands of the pampeanregion. However, only recently, the importance of Argentinean pampas samples todiscuss the evolution of American populations had been revisited because of the radiocarbondating of eight samples of human bones from seven archaeological sitesexcavated by Ameghino and collaborators. In this study, we present a review andanalysis concerning those early samples from the pampean region measured andstudied by Héctor Pucciarelli and colaborators in the last years. The early sampleswere compared against Late Holocene samples, showing pronounced differences.The analyzed samples present the greatest morphological variation when plottedwith other early American samples. However, using solely cranial morphometricdifferences it is hard to support the hypotheses that morphological variations betweenearly and late American samples are related to migratory processes or otherfactors. Molecular evidence from the same samples suggests population continuity.Although craniometric evidence was very important to understand the humanfurther evidences (e.g., archaeological and molecular).