Human remains (Archaeology)--Ecuador

This thesis focuses on identifying the presence of porotic hyperostosis in a sample made up of 119 individuals to a) assess the possible causes of porotic hyperostosis in the ancient Ecuadorian coastal societies, b) reconsider porotic hyperostosis as a nutritional stress marker, and c) propose bartonellosis as an alternative cause for the appearance of porotic lesions in the skull over 4,000 years in the Northern Andes. By applying the BoPLE (Bone Porous Lesions Evaluation) method, results obtained and clinical evidence propose that parasite infections and iron deficiencies are two of the probable causes of porotic hyperostosis in the prehistory of the Ecuadorian coast. Furthermore, the results suggested that a female skull associated with Valdivia culture phase II (3,300 – 2,800 BCE) is Ecuador's oldest record of this symptom. Likewise, the clinical characteristics of bartonellosis suggests it to be a plausible cause of porotic hyperostosis in ancient Ecuador.

This thesis analyzes cranial modification from various sites and locations within coastal Ecuador. This research aims to identify the various types of tabular cranial modification and understand the methods used to classify each subtype of tabular modification. From this, I discussed the different types of modification and then used that information to contrast between North American and South American bioarchaeological methods of classifying cranial modification. Additionally, I reconstructed the biological profiles of some of the crania. The importance of this research is to introduce a method of identifying cranial modification that has been previously used in South American bioarchaeology to North American bioarchaeology. Furthermore, information on cranial modification regarding the coastal populations of Ecuador is lacking. The data in this thesis contributes a significant amount of knowledge about this practice, allowing this project to provide new information to the field of anthropology and the country of Ecuador.