Abstract

GUARIDO, Ana Lucía  and  MAZZA, Bárbara. Identificación de trayectorias mortuorias a partir de marcas de insectos en restos óseos humanos: el caso de Cerro Lutz (Entre Ríos, Argentina). Intersecciones antropol. [online]. 2022, vol.23, suppl.1, pp.35-52. ISSN 1850-373X.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.37176/iea.23.especial1.2022.725.

This work aims to reconstruct the mortuary trajectories of primary and secondary burials of hunter-gatherer societies in the archaeological site Cerro Lutz (Entre Ríos province, Argentina) during the late Holocene. For this purpose, we propose identifying the environment in which the decomposition and skeletonization of the bodies took place based on taphonomic bone alterations produced by necrophagous insects. We analyzed 1411 bone elements from 34 individuals of both sexes and different ages from both types of burials located between anthropic layers of shells. Striae and perforations attributable mainly to Dermestidae and secondarily to Tenebrionidae, Hymenoptera, and Isoptera were identified in all burial types. These bone modifications point to subaerial exposure of the human remains as part of their mortuary trajectories. However, primary and secondary burials show statistically significant differences in the frequencies of insect marks, possibly related to reopening the burial space and processing the skeletal remains.

Keywords : Cadaveric decomposition; Skeletonization; Dermestidae; Hunter-gatherers.

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