Diet and oral health of populations that inhabited central Argentina (Córdoba province) during late Holocene

FABRA, MARIANA; GONZALEZ, CLAUDINA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY

John Wiley & Sons

Año: 2015 p. 160 - 175

1099 1212

The aim of this work is to study, from a bioarchaeological perspective, the diet and oral health of the populationsthat inhabited Central Argentina in two periods which would reflect changes in subsistence strategies:earlier late Holocene (ca. 2500?1500 years BP) and later late Holocene (ca.1500?400 years BP). The sampleis composed by 83 adult individuals from 47 archaeological sites. We considered five non-specific indicatorsof stress, infectious and degenerative diseases: hypoplasia of dental enamel, dental caries, abscesses,antemortem teeth loss, and calculus. We also considered hypercementosis, dens in dens, and agenesis.We test intraobserver error by means of intraclass correlation coefficient and analysis of variance ofrepeated measures. We calculated prevalence by sex, age, geographic subregion, and chronologicalperiod. We applied Chi-square (X2) to test statistical significance of observed differences. Consideringthe sample as a whole, low prevalence of dental caries (10.27%), abscesses (16.52%), and hypoplasia(10.84%) are coincident with values observed for populations with mixed or hunter-gathering subsistencestrategy. In later late Holocene, high incidence of caries should be considered as indicator of consumptionof C4 vegetables or other carbohydrate-rich vegetables, such as legumes of Prosopis sp. Also, moderatevalues of dental enamel hypoplasia should be related with metabolic-systemic stress episodes. Summarizing,these results are coincident with isotopic, archaeological, and ethnohistorical evidences which suggestclimatic, social, and demographic pressures that might have affected the lifestyle of these populations beforethe Spanish conquest.