Movement in Moquegua: Detecting Differential Activity Types via the Knee in a Tiwanaku Subgroup

Summary

Previous studies regarding femoral fossa morphology center on risk levels and variables associated with non-contact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. Increased risk of ACL injury is associated with smaller femoral fossa size. While fossa size is influenced by many variables, biologically "plastic" responses to early life experiences, such as traversing local topography or cultural factors, are appearing to emerge as perhaps the most impactful. Due to the crucial nature of the knee, it is one of the most common locations of focus to detect how stressors of daily life (e.g. movement, activity) shape the underlying skeletal structures. Available studies of the skeletal elements of the knee almost exclusively focus on linear landmark measurements as methods for analysis. Such reductive methodology neglects the three-dimensional, dynamic nature of this joint. This research seeks to present an alternative methodology utilizing digital models that tests for skeletal differences at the knee between subsistence/activity groups (settled agriculturalists versus pastoralist/llama caravanners in a Tiwanaku sample). The use of three-dimensional models is intended to more accurately represent the complexity of the knee joint in analytics, results, and interpretations of the movements and activities of past populations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22534