CRANIAL MODIFICATIONS IN SANTANDER, COLOMBIA

The study of cranial modifications is valuable to the fields of bioarcheology, and other areas of anthropology. This thesis focuses on analyzing cranial modification in Santander, Colombia. Research focuses on a variety of crania in museums of this region. There is not much known about the crania and there are just a few academic works about them from the social/cultural perspective. Some records do mention that a specific group called “Guane” inhabited the region where the crania were discovered. This investigation from the perspective of bioarcheology is particularly important for better understanding and documenting of these specimens. This research will also help the different museums and collections in documenting the crania they have and provide data to others that may also be interested in these collections.
A general aspect of the methodology that was used to achieve the conclusions were photos, measurements and the determination of the sex and age. It was determined that there is no association between the cranial modifications and the sex. Also, the different modifications, including the form, variety and degree was determined for each cranium.