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BROKEN NOSES FOR THE GODS: RITUAL BATTLES IN THE ATACAMA DESERT DURING THE TIWANAKU PERIOD
Acute trauma
Nasal fractures
Ritual fights
Coyo Oriente
Tiwanaku
San Pedro de Atacama
Affilliation
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca. Departamento de Endemias Samuel Pessoa. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca. Departamento de Endemias Samuel Pessoa. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca. Departamento de Endemias Samuel Pessoa. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.
Abstract
The sample consists of 226 skulls from the Atacameño cemetery of Coyo Oriente (639-910 AD), associated with the Tiwanaku period. The authors analyzed signs of acute trauma typically associated with violence, and the results were 12% of men and 9.9% of women displaying any type of lesion related to violence. In males, concentration of these non-lethal lesions in the nasal region (10.4%) as opposed to a random distribution over the entire skull (1.6%), suggests that the blows were struck during rituals. The cultural context of this period, with a strong ideological influence from Tiwanaku, supports the ritual hypothesis, since both the ethnographic as well as archeological records point to the existence of non-lethal violent bleeding with ritual beating to the face. Such rituals persist to this day among certain Andean populations. Among women, the most plausible hypothesis for the lesions (3.9% in the skull, 4.9% in the nasal bones, and 0.9% in the face) is domestic conflicts, since they show a random distribution. Previous studies with other Atacameño samples had indicated the same results for women.
Keywords
PalaeoepidemiologyAcute trauma
Nasal fractures
Ritual fights
Coyo Oriente
Tiwanaku
San Pedro de Atacama
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