Porotic Hyperostosis and Cribra Orbitalia in Human Remains from Southern Patagonia

SUBY JORGE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOC NIPPON, C/O GALILEO INC

Lugar: Tokio; Año: 2014 vol. 122 p. 69 - 79

0918-7960

Previous studies informed high frequency of porotic hyperostosis in hunter-gatherer populations from Southern Patagonia. Nevertheless, the systematic recovery of new burials with detailed archaeological and paleodietary contextual information during the last two decades offers new opportunities to explore the frequency of anemia and its possible variation among populations with different marine and terrestrial hunter-gatherer lifestyles. This paper has the aim of reporting the results of the analysis of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia in skeletal human remains from this region, discussing their most likely causes at the light of current evidence. The results showed high prevalence of porotic hyperostosis and low prevalence of cribra orbitalia, without significant differences between age and sexes. Moreover, marine hunter-gatherers presented higher frequency of porotic hyperostosis than those individuals associated to terrestrial economies. Nutritional and zoonotic aspects are proposed as the most probable causes of the high frequency of anemia observed in individuals with marine-based diets. Although no temporal differences were observed, possible heterogeneous scenarios about health in human native populations in during-contact period are proposed.