Doctorial Dissertation: Cranial Variation in South Central Andean Populations: A Descriptive and Comparative Assessment of Morphology

为了了解史前南美安第斯地区的人类群体是如何相互关联的，将会提出以下研究问题：考古学家定义的从人工制品模式构建的“文化”是否与生物人类学家定义的从人类骨骼建立的类别相对应？族群之间和族群内部的生物变异如何与地理和时间相对应；颅骨形态的趋势如何反映考古记录中显示的区域间交流模式？该项目将调查史前玻利维亚人口的人类头骨的生物变异范围。这些头骨是从安第斯山脉中南部的考古遗址中收集来的，目前存放在玻利维亚科恰班巴的圣西蒙大学考古博物馆。收集将被测量和评分。这些数据将进行统计分析。从这些程序中产生的生物距离（反映群体之间的隔离）将有助于从“基因”上对群体进行分类。然后，这些生物集群将与考古学家从发现头骨的同一地点发现的人工证据中创造的集群进行比较。从这种比较中得到的信息将有助于确定在给定的地理环境和时期内，史前的生物单位和文化单位是否相对应。本研究旨在阐明将人类文化作为史前基本单位的过去的解释，并通过三种考古模型探索文化接触：垂直生态互补、贸易商队或迁移/殖民。预计这项研究的结果将与商队模型最一致，在商队模型中，颅骨形态的趋势与同一地理区域的考古记录中的模式相吻合。如果有证据表明生物学不能反映过去的文化，那么考古学家使用的许多方法和假设将不得不重新评估。这个项目将补充目前关于南美洲人口间生物距离的研究。所收集的数据还将有助于生物人类学和考古学的学科，通过提供关于一个独特的骨骼收藏的信息，它记录了史前南美洲一个令人兴奋的和未被充分研究的地区。

To understand how prehistoric South American Andean human groups were related, the following research questions will be asked: do "cultures" constructed from artifact patterns defined by archaeologists correspond to the categories established from the human skeleton defined by biological anthropologists? How does biological variation between and within the groups correspond to geography and time; and how do trends in cranial morphology reflect models of inter-regional exchange shown in the archaeological record?This project will investigate the range of biological variation within a collection of human skulls from prehistoric Bolivian populations. The skulls, collected from archaeological sites in the South-Central Andes Mountains, are currently housed at the Museo Arqueologico de la Universidad de San Simon in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The collection will be measured and scored. The data will be subjected to statistical analyses. The biological distances (reflecting isolation of groups from one another) generated from these procedures will help to cluster the groups "genetically". These biological clusters will then be compared to aggregates that archaeologists have created from artifactual evidence found at the same sites where the skulls were uncovered.Information from such comparisons will help determine whether the biological and cultural units of prehistory correspond, for a given geographic context and time period. This research is designed to illuminate explanations of the past that treat human cultures as basic units in prehistory, and to explore culture contact through three archaeological models: vertical ecological complementarity, trade caravans, or migration/colonization. It is expected that the results from this study will be most consistent with the trade caravan model, where trends in cranial morphology coincide with patterns in the archaeological record for the same geographic area. Where there is evidence that biology does not mirror culture in the past, then many of the methods and assumptions employed by archaeologists will have to be reevaluated.This project will complement current studies of biological distance among South American populations. The data collected will also contribute to the disciplines of biological anthropology and archaeology by providing information on a unique skeletal collection which documents an exciting and understudied area of prehistoric South America.