Mortuary behaviour in subadults: social and cultural context in hunter-gatherer societies of the centre of Argentina.

BERÓN, M, C. ARANDA Y L. LUNA

Dublin, Irlanda

Congreso; World Archaeological Congress VI; 2008

World Archaeological Congress

Children are scarcely represented in the prehistoric mortuary record of high mobility hunter-gatherers. However, the bioarchaeological information derived from this population subgroup is abundant and diverse in the Chenque I site (La Pampa, Argentina), a cemetery used for 700 years during the Final Late Holocene (1050-320 BP). Up to now, the Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) is 216, and almost half of them are subadults. The mortality curve shows a high frequency of individuals buried in the first years of life. There is a high variability in the cultural record associated with the burials, and in the body treatment. A high percentage is not accompanied by any ornament, but some burials (male children) contain abundant and highly significant adornment (necklaces made with shell and stone beads, associated with Canis familiaris, ochre, bundles). Moreover, some juvenile individuals with arrow points inserted in the skeleton could have been warriors, which would indicate a difference between the concepts of biological age and social age. All these data denote the importance of children and juveniles in these hunter-gatherer societies.