Under Pressure: Evidence of 'La Vida Cotidiana' in Cranial Shape Typology at Jarana, an Inca Site in Southern Perú

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This poster details the results of cranial modification typology research conducted at Jarana, a Late Intermediate and Early Inca administrative site located in the San Juan de Churunga river valley of southern Peru. Cultural cranial modification was particularly widespread among pre-Hispanic societies in the Andes. The practice is commonly interpreted as a deliberate expression of identity, with different cranial shapes used to delineate social groupings within a society or to emphasize differences between cultural or political groups occupying a region. Crania at Jarana were expected to display similar modification patterns indicative of social differentiation. However, while Jarana shows a site-wide uniformity of general cranial shape, there is significant variation in the location of the posterior pressure plane, causing most of the crania to appear to have occipital modification that is shifted either to the right or to the left. This variation is not associated with any known demographic patterns within the population. This significant and seemingly random variation in occipital pressure placement during shaping could indicate that cranial modification at Jarana is a byproduct of daily life practices associated with the care and transport of infants rather than a deliberate visual cue to delineate social groupings.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25322