Abstract

GARCIA GURAIEB, Solana. Health and disease among late Holocene hunter-gatherer populations from Lake Salitroso Basin, Patagonia, Argentina. Intersecciones antropol. [online]. 2006, n.7, pp.37-48. ISSN 1850-373X.

Research at Lake Salitroso Basin (northwestern Santa Cruz, Argentina) has been directed at assessing whether the trend towards more arid climatic conditions, recorded in central Southern Patagonia for the last 2500 years, and especially intense during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (ca. 1200 to 600 years BP), influenced human groups to reduce their residential mobility and concentrate their settlements in specific loci (e.g. low altitude basins such as Lake Salitroso Basin) that offered suitable conditions for stable occupation. This question is addressed here by means of an assessment of the effects that such organizational changes might have had on the health of these populations. Several bone and dental indicators were analysed in a sample of 30 individuals from a specific kind of burial site, known as "chenques," located on different landforms surrounding Lake Salitroso Basin, and dated between ca. 1200 and 350 years BP. A high variability of pathological conditions was recorded in the sample, though most of them appeared in low frequencies. Relatively high prevalence of dental hypoplasias and low prevalence of porotic hyperostosis, trauma and infections were recorded. Among the infectious diseases the most conspicuous case was an adult female who showed bone lesions compatible with tuberculosis.

Keywords : Health; Hunter-gatherers; Patagonia; Late Holocene.

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