Endemic violence in a pre‐Hispanic Andean community: A bioarchaeological study of cranial trauma from the Majes Valley, Peru

Abstract

Objectives: This study examines violence-related cranial trauma frequencies and wound characteristics in the pre-Hispanic cemetery of Uraca in the lower Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru, dating to the pre-and early-Wari periods . Cranial wounds are compared between status and sex-based subgroups to understand how violence shaped, and was shaped by, these aspects of identity, and to reconstruct the social contexts of violence carried out by and against Uracans. Materials and Methods: Presence, location, and characteristics (lethality, penetration, and post-traumatic sequelae) of antemortem and perimortem cranial fractures are documented for 145 crania and compared between subgroups. Cranial wounds are mapped in ArcGIS and the locational distribution of injuries is compared between male and female crania.Results: Middle adult males were disproportionately interred at Uraca, particularly in the elite Sector I. The Uraca mortuary population presents the highest rate of cranial trauma reported for pre-Hispanic Peru: 67% of adults present trauma, and among those, 61.1% present more than one cranial injury. Males exhibit significantly more cranial trauma than females and present a higher mean number of injuries per person.Elite males show the highest mean number of injuries per person, more antemortem injuries, and are the only ones with perimortem cranial trauma, bladed injuries, penetrating injuries, and post-traumatic sequelae. Both sexes were most frequently injured on the anterior of the cranium, while the proportion of posterior injuries was higher for females.Discussion: The rate, intensity, and locational patterns of cranial trauma suggests the community was engaged in raids and/or war with enemy groups, some of which may have increased physical violence between community members. Engaging in violence was likely a prerequisite for burial in the elite sector and was bound up with the generation and maintenance of social status differences linked to male social life.

Prevalence of cranial trauma in Eurasian Upper Paleolithic humans

“…The sex effect in the previous study (posterior mean: 1.515; CI: 0.178-2.921; pMCMC: 0.017 for skeletal elements, and posterior mean: 3.533; CI: 0.865-6.397; pMCMC: 0.002 for specimens) was more pronounced than in the present study (Table 2). Furthermore, a higher male than female cranial trauma prevalence is consistent with the common bioarchaeological finding that male skeletal remains are more likely to show injuries than female remains (Cohen et al, 2014;Fibiger et al, 2013;Jiménez-Brobeil et al, 2009;Larsen, 1997;Milner, Boldsen, Weise, Lauritsen, & Freund, 2015;Redfern, 2017b;Scaffidi & Tung, 2020;Schwitalla, Jones, Pilloud, Codding, & Wiberg, 2014;Standen et al, 2020;Walker, 2001), which might suggest that males exposed themselves more frequently to risky situations, such as physical confrontations, warfare, or risky leisure activities (Judd, 2017;Kwan, Cureton, Dozier, & Victorino, 2011;Martin et al, 2015;O'Jile, Ryan, Parks-Levy, Betz, & Gouvier, 2004;Redfern, 2017b;Sutherland, 2002). The observed, yet small, difference in cranial trauma prevalence between the sexes in our study might indicate different exposures to hazardous situations, for example, because of different behaviors or the involvement in different activities.…”

“…We performed all GLMMs twice, once at the level of skeletal elements and once at the level of specimens. The element‐level approach enabled us to account for variation in trauma prevalence between skeletal elements and to derive marginal predictions for trauma prevalence beyond element identity—a crucial aspect because previous research (Delgado‐Darias et al, 2018; Fibiger et al, 2013; Scaffidi & Tung, 2020; Walker, 1997; Wilkinson, 1997), as well as our own data have shown that some cranial regions such as the frontal and parietal bones exhibit trauma more frequently than others. In our present sample, the frontal and right parietal bones are the skeletal elements most often affected by trauma (11.6 and 9.1%; Table 1).…”

The character of conflict: A bioarchaeological study of violence in the Nasca highlands of Peru during the Late Intermediate Period (950–1450 C.E.)

“…To assess differences between combatants and noncombatants by age, we created two aggregate age-cohorts: subadult (0-13 years old), and adult (14-50+). Following previous research (Scaffidi & Tung, 2020;Tung, 2007), the adolescent cohort was included in the adult aggregate cohort due to the high rates of adolescent violence relative to the child and infant cohorts. The subadult aggregate cohort (ages 0-13) exhibits 6.9% perimortem trauma while the adult aggregate cohort (ages 14-50 +) exhibits 13.9% perimortem trauma, showing the probability of a lethal encounter is higher in adulthood (Table 2).…”

Heterarchy and the Creation of Nomadic States in Mongolia: The Bioarchaeological Evidence from the Xianbei Period (AD 93–234)

“…As Nielsen (2009, 220) argues, violence is never merely a "mechanical response to environmental stress" or "an aggrandizing strategy implemented by war leaders alone in a cultural and social vacuum." Instead, violence is an elaborate performance made meaningful by the historically contingent and local circumstances that inform how those who enact, suffer, and perceive violent acts interpret those acts (Scaffidi and Tung 2020;Whitehead 2007). Violence, whether blows between living combatants or the violent dismemberment and defleshing of the decapitated head of a trophy-taker's opponent, can simultaneously function to order and reframe relationships between community members and between communities.…”

“…The cemetery of Uraca represents a mortuary population that was organized around the performance of violence and violent ritual. The cemetery is located on a visually prominent bluff beside a petroglyph shrine called Toro Muerto-a critical juncture in pre-Hispanic road networks (Scaffidi 2018)-that contains multiple carvings documenting violent warfare and death ritual involving decapitated human heads (Scaffidi, in press;Scaffidi and Tung 2020). Uraca dates to the Early Intermediate Period (ca.…”