Exploring Social Differences as Evidenced by Measures of Physical Activity and Skeletal Health in a Muisca Population (950-1400 AD, Soacha, Colombia)

Summary

The human skeleton is a dynamic tissue that changes over the lifetime in response to particular variables such as an individual’s diet, health, sex, and physical activity. Studying human long bones, such as femurs and humerii, for measures of bone quantity and shape can provide insights into the ways that the skeleton reflects the amounts and types of work performed during life. The Muisca, from northern Colombia, are often characterized as highly stratified societies where social differences were strongly marked. One area where social differences may be evidenced is through daily laboring practices, which may be intertwined with social roles such as an individual’s status, age, and sex. Human skeletal remains from the archaeological site of Tibanica (Soacha, Colombia; 950-1400 AD) were imaged using non-invasive computed tomography (CT) in order to study how bone measures may reflect differential activity patterns between particular social groups (such as females vs. males, young vs. old age adults, etc.). Cross-sectional geometry data indicate significant differences between males and females in both their amount of bone, and the strength and robusticity of their long bones, suggesting that an individual’s sex may have delineated the types and amounts of work that one performed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage