An Appraisal of Human Remains from Pali Aike Cave (Magallanes, Chile): Inferences about Demography and Mortuary Practices during the Early Holocene

L'HEUREUX G. L; AMOROSI, T.

CURRENT RESEARCH IN THE PLEISTOCENE

Center for the Study of the First Americans

Lugar: Texas; Año: 2011

8755-898X

The Pali Aike archaeological site is located at the Pali Aike Lava Field, about 27.5 km from the Magellan Strait, Magallanes province, Chile. This cave was first excavated by the American archaeologist Junius Bird in two field season (1936 and 1937), during which he recovered human bone remains and a number of other archaeological and paleontological evidence. These materials are currently housed at the Anthropology Division, American Museum of Natural History, New York. The original description of the finds by Bird informs about the presence of three highly disturbed and cremated burials (MNI= 3). Despite the apparent association of the End Pleistocene fauna with the human remains, a number of evidence indicates the likely lack of contemporaneity between those taxa. A radiocarbon date from one of the individuals yielded a minimum age of 7,830 ± 60 BP., thus placing the burials in the Early Holocene. After an exhaustive review of the human remains, it was observed that the bone accumulations that were originally described as three individual burials contained, in fact, the incomplete remains of at least 6 individuals (4 subadults and 2 adults). In addition, not all individuals showed signs of charring and/or calcination. These new data are relevant to the discussion of the mortuary practices and the demography of the hunter-gatherer Early Holocene populations of southern continental Patagonia.