Life and Death at the mouth of the River Loa: Bioarchaeological and biogeochemical analysis of human remains from Formative Period northern Chile

Summary

Recent research has shown that during the Formative Period (1500 B.C.-A.D. 500), in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert life was sustained and enriched by inter-zonal movement and networks of exchange of both prestige goods and staple materials. In order to further detail these phenomena, a series of five cemeteries in the region of Caleta Huelén were recently excavated. In this work, we present the results of contextualized bioarchaeological and biogeochemical analysis of over 30 individuals, focusing in particular on the distillation of patterns of diet, lifetime residential mobility, relatedness, and ethnic self-representation (in the form of intentional cranial modification). The observed patterns speak to a complex web of social, economic, and ethnic relationships, as well as between the Caleta Huelén sites and their contemporaries on the Pacific coast, oases of the desert interior, and beyond. These data support the contention that the Atacama Desert’s Formative Period was one of far-reaching interaction and exchange.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage