The Chinchorro culture: Mummies and crania in the reconstruction of preceramic coastal adaptation in the south central Andes.

Abstract

This study presents a bioarchaeological approach to the Chinchorro preceramic population that adapted to the coastal region of the south central Andes based on (1) the analysis of a series of 17 mummies from the site Morro 1-5 in Arica, Chile, dated to 4120 $\pm$ 75 years B.P. (2170 B.C.), (2) and the comparative study of crania from Chinchorro and later prehistoric populations from the Azapa valley in northern Chile. The materials analyzed are part of the collections of the Azapa Museum of the University of Tarapaca in Arica, Chile. The objective of the study was to organize the dispersed literature on the Chinchorro, and integrate it with the results of the analysis to gain knowledge on their adaptation. From this efforts it is perceived that the practice of artificial mummification as a ritual expression was part of a sophisticated funerary behavior used to maintain access privileges of a kinship group over important subsistence resources. Evaluation of the data indicates that Chinchorro's funerary pattern and other cultural traits such as cranial deformation were local developments, and neither a highland or Amazonian influence can be considered as the source for these developments. The cranial studies found biological continuity among the series studied from the Azapa valley in Arica. Within that perspective comparisons with craniometric data from Uhle's skull collection question the use of series accumulated from surface collections or without controls for studies of morphological identification and population distance. This study presents an Archaic culture that reflects one of the longest and most successful adaptations to the fragile environment of the south central Andean coast. This adaptation involved a sophisticated ideology but maintaining an egalitarian social organization and a diversified economy that combined the use of the abundant resources of the littoral and the terrestrial plants and animals.