Endemic violence in a pre‐Hispanic Andean community: A bioarchaeological study of cranial trauma from the Majes Valley, Peru

2020-01-14articleAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology24 citationsclosed

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies Archaeological and Geological Studies Paleopathology and ancient diseases

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: This study examines violence-related cranial trauma frequencies and wound characteristics in the pre-Hispanic cemetery of Uraca in the lower Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru, dating to the pre- and early-Wari periods (200-750 CE). Cranial wounds are compared between status and sex-based subgroups to understand how violence shaped, and was shaped by, these aspects of identity, and to reconstruct the social contexts of violence carried out by and against Uracans. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Presence, location, and characteristics (lethality, penetration, and post-traumatic sequelae) of antemortem and perimortem cranial fractures are documented for 145 crania and compared between subgroups. Cranial wounds are mapped in ArcGIS and the locational distribution of injuries is compared between male and female crania. RESULTS: Middle adult males were disproportionately interred at Uraca, particularly in the elite Sector I. The Uraca mortuary population presents the highest rate of cranial trauma reported for pre-Hispanic Peru: 67% of adults present trauma, and among those, 61.1% present more than one cranial injury. Males exhibit significantly more cranial trauma than females and present a higher mean number of injuries per person. Elite males show the highest mean number of injuries per person, more antemortem injuries, and are the only ones with perimortem cranial trauma, bladed injuries, penetrating injuries, and post-traumatic sequelae. Both sexes were most frequently injured on the anterior of the cranium, while the proportion of posterior injuries was higher for females. DISCUSSION: The rate, intensity, and locational patterns of cranial trauma suggests the community was engaged in raids and/or war with enemy groups, some of which may have increased physical violence between community members. Engaging in violence was likely a prerequisite for burial in the elite sector and was bound up with the generation and maintenance of social status differences linked to male social life.

Citations in this library

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 24 citations exist upstream.

References

1989How Societies Remember

1994Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains

1992Death Without Weeping

1990Cultural Violence

1963The human skeleton in forensic medicine

1985Ectocranial suture closure: A revised method for the determination of skeletal age at death based on the lateral‐anterior sutures

1971History of Human Life Span and Mortality

1983Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality.

Cited by

2020The character of conflict: A bioarchaeological study of violence in the Nasca highlands of Peru during the Late Intermediate Period (950–1450 C.E.)

2022The day the music died: Making and playing bone wind instruments at La Real in Middle Horizon, Peru (600–1000 CE)