Historical and Social Setting

The Tarapacá region is part of an ecological and cultural macro area located in the southern portion of the Western Valleys of the south-central Andes (Figure 1). It is bounded by the Camiña River in the north, the Loa River in the south, the Pacific Ocean in the west, and the Andes in the east (Maldonado et al. Reference Maldonado, de Porras, Zamora, Rivadeneira, Abarzúa, Falabella, Uribe, Sanhueza, Aldunate and Hidalgo2016). Varying landscapes and ecosystems are found in this region: the coast of Pacific Ocean and the Coastal Cordillera; the Pampa del Tamarugal with its valleys, ravines, and oases; the precordillera; and, finally, the altiplano in the Andes at 2,500–4,000 m asl (Santoro et al. Reference Santoro, Capriles, Gayo, de Porras, Maldonado, Standen and Latorre2017). Today, the Tarapacá region is characterized by extreme aridity and scarce vegetation, but 2,000 years ago the valleys around the ravines contained forests of Prosopis, reflecting the greater availability of water (Maldonado et al. Reference Maldonado, de Porras, Zamora, Rivadeneira, Abarzúa, Falabella, Uribe, Sanhueza, Aldunate and Hidalgo2016).

The Tr-40 cemetery (1000 BC–AD 600) is located on the north side of the low course of the Tarapacá ravine, and it is associated with the Formative settlements of Pircas-1 (370 BC–AD 350) and Caserones-1 (AD 20–1020; Núñez Reference Núñez1982, Reference Núñez1984; Pellegrino et al. Reference Pellegrino, Adán and Urbina2016; True Reference True, Meighan and True1980; Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Agüero, Catalán, Herrera and Santana-Sagredo2015). The individual whom we analyzed comes from tomb 1 in sector Y, which represents the late component of the cemetery and is associated with the Caserones village during the Late Formative (Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Agüero, Catalán, Herrera and Santana-Sagredo2015:Note 1).

The Late Formative period of Tarapacá (ca. AD 200–900) is contemporary with the Middle period described in other areas of the Western Valleys, which is usually characterized according to the altiplano presence or influence on local cultural developments relating to incipient agriculturization, such as in the Arica Valley (Rivera Reference Rivera, Rivera and Kolata2004). This definition matches most classic archaeological proposals for the Atacama Desert, which are influenced by the Neolithic model (e.g., Núñez Reference Núñez, Hidalgo, Schiappacasse, Niemeyer, Aldunate and Solimano1989; Muñoz Reference Muñoz2004; Rivera Reference Rivera, Rivera and Kolata2004). According to this definition, local populations—with roots in ancient coastal traditions—had little agency in the cultural processes that led to an agricultural and village lifestyle. These changes would have been mediated by the presence of colonies from the highlands who had been influenced by more complex economic and political formations. In recent years, this proposal has been modified to some extent, giving greater agency to the Formative coastal and local populations in their social and economic transformations (e.g., Muñoz Reference Muñoz2019; Núñez and Santoro Reference Núñez and Santoro2011).

An alternative model has been proposed for the Formative period in the Tarapacá region, further emphasizing the agency of communities and the importance of understanding local processes from the perspective of the settlement's social life (Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Angelo, Capriles, Castro, de Porras, García and Gayo2020). The groups that occupied the Pampa del Tamarugal had strong identity links with the coastal people that developed a hunter-gatherer-fisher lifestyle (Santoro et al. Reference Santoro, Capriles, Gayo, de Porras, Maldonado, Standen and Latorre2017; Uribe and Adán Reference Uribe and Adán2012). The Tr-40 cemetery has evidence of these links in the form of resources and objects associated with the coast, and the stable isotope analyses of the bioanthropological remains show individuals who were related to both ecozones: the Pampa del Tamarugal and the coast (Santana-Sagredo et al. Reference Santana-Sagredo, Uribe, Herrera, Retamal and Flores2015; Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Agüero, Catalán, Herrera and Santana-Sagredo2015).

The Formative processes in Tarapacá reflect a society with a social and political organization based on kinship relations between autonomous or segmentary units/territories, which reproduced identity ideals through the cult of the ancestors as a means of territorial and political reaffirmation (Adán et al. Reference Adán, Urbina, Uribe, Nielsen, Rivolta, Seldes, Vázquez and Mercolli2007; González-Ramírez et al. Reference González-Ramírez, Sáez, Herrera-Soto, Leyton, Miranda, Santana-Sagredo and Uribe-Rodríguez2021). During the Late Formative, social complexity is evident in such places as the Caserones village with its restricted domestic and public spaces, in the agricultural fields connected with silvicultural production areas, and in ceremonial spaces such as tumuli and the geoglyphs in the surrounding hills (Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Angelo, Capriles, Castro, de Porras, García and Gayo2020).

The people buried in Tr-40 likewise embody the complexity of this period through their diverse types of cranial modifications and hairstyles (Arias and Herrera Reference Arias and Herrera2012). Their funerary vestments also suggest individual distinctions, as well as a performativity that was possibly displayed in ceremonial settings (Agüero Reference Agüero2012). After studying the bioanthropological remains of Tr-40, González-Ramírez and colleagues (Reference González-Ramírez, Sáez, Herrera-Soto, Leyton, Miranda, Santana-Sagredo and Uribe-Rodríguez2021) proposed the presence of social/sex regulation that affected different agents, such as control over the procreative labor performed by women as a mechanism to maintain social reproduction.

Therefore, social complexity in Tarapacá is understood as the emergence of the organization and reproduction of a new social order. This led to technological changes, labor specialization, and a system of relationships between different regions of the Andes for the exchange of goods and persons, as well as for the enhancement of social or kinship alliances through reciprocity and exchange (Núñez and Santoro Reference Núñez and Santoro2011; Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Angelo, Capriles, Castro, de Porras, García and Gayo2020). This increased social complexity brought with it growing inequality and tensions, as reflected in evidence of physical violence documented in some areas of northern Chile (Standen et al. Reference Standen, Santoro, Bernardo Arriaza, Susana Monsalve, Valenzuela and Marquet2021; Torres-Rouff et al. Reference Torres-Rouff, Hubbe and Pestle2018; Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Angelo, Capriles, Castro, de Porras, García and Gayo2020:18). These Formative period processes were created collectively from the relations of reciprocity and power between persons and their environment and from diverse ways of conceiving the world, as mediated by their historical and local trajectories (Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Angelo, Capriles, Castro, de Porras, García and Gayo2020).

Theoretical Approach

Here, we understand power not as a force that comes from an upper hierarchy of society (e.g., elites) but as a human phenomenon that permeates all aspects of social life and is reproduced in discourse, quotidian practices, and corporeality (Foucault Reference Foucault1990:112–113). Social inequality fundamentally arises from the daily relationships of the bodies/subjects (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1997). Therefore, we propose that the woman of Tr-40 whom we analyze more closely approximates how some individuals, especially those in nonprivileged situations, lived during the Formative period.

Our principal theoretical approach is based on social bioarchaeology and feminist archaeology (e.g., Geller Reference Geller2008; Vila-Mitjà Reference Vila-Mitjà2011). Both frameworks allow us to understand this individual's life in a broader context and to relate her role as a member of a specific collective to a shared social and historical background. We also incorporate the methods of osteobiography to construct a narrative about the life and death of the woman through the study of her body. The body as materiality is made up of different layers of biological traits and biocultural processes (Geller Reference Geller2008). On a larger scale, the body with other subjects and material aspects of the social configuration constitute relational nodes with overlapping temporalities, materials, and biographies (Hosek Reference Hosek2019).

We use microhistory as a complementary approach because it converges with osteobiography in the scale of analysis; both argue that close examination of an individual subject has the potential to reveal previously overlooked phenomena and connections to wider historical processes (Ginzburg Reference Ginzburg1994; Hosek Reference Hosek2019). The human body acts as a locus of multiple intersecting histories that are constructed between individuals, who are considered nodes within networks of relationalities (Robb and Pauketat Reference Robb, Pauketat, Robb and Pauketat2013). Thus, interactions at the local scale are together constantly negotiating and transforming history on the large scale (Hosek Reference Hosek2019). Osteobiography and microhistory enable an emphasis on the agency of people in the past, especially subaltern subjects, and their active roles in shaping history: by so doing, they critique dominant narratives and offer alternative understandings of the past (Ginzburg Reference Ginzburg1994; Hosek Reference Hosek2019).

The Body as a Story of Life

The osteological remains analyzed belonged to a female individual whose age at the time of death was between 35 and 45 years (Supplemental Table 1).Footnote ¹ The individual lived in the Atacama Desert during the Late Formative period (cal AD 427–594; 1580 ± 30 AP; 95.4% hpd; Figure 3). Based on this date and the location of her tomb (T1-SY), this person may have been a member of the community associated with the Caserones village, which was occupied continuously until the end of the Formative period (Pellegrino et al. Reference Pellegrino, Adán and Urbina2016).

Figure 3.

Calibrated radiocarbon date of individual B2140 (Beta-355779; bone collagen).

Artificial cranial modification (ACM) was a recognized cultural practice in northern Chile (Díaz-Jarufe et al. Reference Díaz-Jarufe, Pacheco-Miranda and Retamal-Yermani2018). In the Tr-40 cemetery, the most common ACMs were circular oblique and tabular oblique (Arias and Herrera Reference Arias and Herrera2012). The woman's head was molded intentionally, causing a tabular oblique cranial modification (Dembo and Imbelloni Reference Dembo and Imbelloni1938). We compared the ACM types of Tr-40 with those documented in the contemporary cemetery of Cáñamo-3, located on the coast and about 80 km from the Tarapacá ravine (Figure 1). Both cemeteries have similar types of ACMs (Arias and Herrera Reference Arias and Herrera2012; Núñez and Moragas Reference Núñez and Moragas1977). This similarity suggests a relationship between these populations, which was also proposed based on the analysis of stable isotopes from both cemeteries that indicated a change of residence—from the coast to the Pampa del Tamarugal, or vice versa—mostly by women (Santana-Sagredo et al. Reference Santana-Sagredo, Herrera and Uribe2012, Reference Santana-Sagredo, Uribe, Herrera, Retamal and Flores2015).

When we assessed the woman's state of health, we found that her temporomandibular joint was severely affected, which means that she likely had osteoarthrosis of the masticatory apparatus. The osteoarthrosis was probably related to advanced dental wear (Supplemental Figures 1 and 2). Both may be related to the food that she consumed during her life or to some kind of activity, which in conjunction with her age could produce the severity of these indicators.

The δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N isotope values obtained from the tooth and bone samples do not differ (Table 1), which indicates that she consumed a similar diet throughout her life. The isotope data show that she ate food from different sources. The principal source was probably wild and cultivated C₃ plants (e.g., algarrobo, chañar, molle, quinoa, squash) from the Pampa del Tamarugal, whereas C₄ resources (most likely maize) were a more minor source (Holden and Núñez Reference Holden and Núñez1993; Santana-Sagredo et al. Reference Santana-Sagredo, Uribe, Herrera, Retamal and Flores2015). She also consumed food that probably came from the Pacific Ocean, as shown by the δ¹⁵N values. This interpretation is supported by the zooarchaeological evidence of fish and shellfish found at Tr-40 and related domestic sites and the diet indicated by stable isotope analysis of other individuals from this cemetery (Santana-Sagredo et al. Reference Santana-Sagredo, Herrera and Uribe2012, Reference Santana-Sagredo, Uribe, Herrera, Retamal and Flores2015). However, the marine diet input was not considerable, and it was likely complemented by terrestrial resources. Thus, a variety of foods were consumed in Tarapacá during the Formative period (García et al. Reference García, Vidal, Mandakovic, Maldonado, Peña and Belmonte2014; Santana-Sagredo et al. Reference Santana-Sagredo, Uribe, Herrera, Retamal and Flores2015).

Table 1.

Stable Isotope Analysis Results for Bone Collagen and Apatite.

The dental wear, as well as the chipping and the groove observed in one of her molars, suggests that she chewed hard products constantly (Supplemental Figure 3). The presence of mortars and handstones in sites of the Tarapacá region during the Formative period shows that the production of ground food, such as flour, was common (Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Angelo, Capriles, Castro, de Porras, García and Gayo2020). This ground food may have contained abrasive particles from the mortar, which can contribute to greater dental wear or chipping of the dental enamel (Hillson Reference Hillson1996:231). The fibers and fruits of various types of vegetables found in these sites suggest the consumption and use of wild plants as raw materials for different purposes (e.g., basketwork, building material), for which the teeth were probably used as tools.

Traditional work associated with women is the production of chicha, reported ethnographically and proposed for many archaeological populations (Hayashida Reference Hayashida2008; Hubbe et al. Reference Hubbe, Torres-Rouff, Neves, King, Da-Gloria and Costa2012). This process required constant use of the masticatory apparatus. The product generated from the chewing of seeds (e.g., algarrobo, maize, molle) accelerated the drink's fermentation, because the amylase enzymes contained in the saliva contribute to the separation of the starch into simpler sugars (Smalley and Blake Reference Smalley and Blake2003). Consequently, the dental features documented here may reflect the effect of the woman's age on dental attrition, the consumption of hard fruits and foods with abrasive particles, and the parafunctional use of her teeth for different tasks.

The degenerative joint disease (DJD) recorded in the spine and left tibia indicate biomechanical stress, especially in the lower back and knees, but the expression of these signs was still incipient at the time of death. These conditions may have been generated by repetitive movements during her life—for example, poor posture or bending down without bending her knees to pick up objects—or doing work at ground level (Larsen Reference Larsen2015). Adults of both sexes from Tr-40 exhibit similar levels of DJD in the lower thoracic and lumbar vertebrae and in the lower limb, which are increased in individuals older than 40 years old (Herrera Reference Herrera2010). This information, together with that obtained from the materiality of the cemetery and Caserones-1 (e.g., Núñez Reference Núñez1982; Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Agüero, Catalán, Herrera and Santana-Sagredo2015), suggests that individuals carried out different activities related to the gathering and transport of products; engaged in repetitive work such as in the textile industry, agricultural activities, and food processing through grinding; and were mobile.

The woman does not present osteological signs associated with specific diseases. Similar results were observed in the other skeletons exhumed from Tr-40 (Arias and Herrera Reference Arias and Herrera2012). However, the absence of macroscopic signs in the bone does not necessarily imply good health or the absence of disease (Wood et al. Reference Wood, Milner, Harpending and Weiss1992). Studies on mummies from Tr-40 showed a high prevalence of respiratory disease, such as pneumonia and tuberculosis (Allison et al. Reference Allison, Gerszten, Munizaga, Santoro, Mendoza and Buikstra1981; Fontana et al. Reference Fontana, Allison, Gerszten and Arriaza1983), and high infant mortality (González-Ramírez et al. Reference González-Ramírez, Pacheco-Miranda, Sáez and Arregui-Wunderlich2019). Chagas disease, blastomycosis, salmonella, and parasitic infections were also documented (Allison et al. Reference Allison, Gerszten, Jean Shadomy, Munizaga and González1979; Fontana et al. Reference Fontana, Allison, Gerszten and Arriaza1983; Ramirez et al. Reference Ramirez, Herrera-Soto, Santana-Sagredo, Uribe-Rodríguez and Nores2021; Rothhammer et al. Reference Rothhammer, Standen, Nuñez, Allison and Arriaza1984).

These data suggest that poor sanitary conditions for the Formative period—probably related to population growth, overcrowding, poor hygiene, food or water contamination, and new zoonotic relationships—generated favorable conditions for contagion by infectious diseases. Thus, the daily conditions of the Tr-40 woman were characterized by the presence of contagious diseases among people and animals, associated with a more sedentary lifestyle that included domestication of animals and a higher population density. Even had she suffered any of these illnesses, they were not the cause of her death.

Social Life and a Violent Death

The organization of Andean societies, such as the Aymara communities in northern Chile, is modulated by life cycles shaped by gender relations that create and regulate social, economic, political, and religious life. The life cycle is determined by individuals’ social phase/age and the role they have in their social networks (Carrasco Reference Carrasco2020). We do not intend to make a direct comparison between contemporary Andean societies of the Atacama Desert and the communities that inhabited it in the past. However, looking at the present allows us to understand that the life of an individual is built based on multiscalar cultural components that cross and shape his or her historicity and identities.

This woman's years from childhood to adulthood occurred in the same environment in which she died, as suggested by the isotopic signals. The δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N isotope values show a close relationship with the resources of the Pampa del Tamarugal and occasionally with the coast (Santana-Sagredo et al. Reference Santana-Sagredo, Uribe, Herrera, Retamal and Flores2015), as is also suggested by her ACM. Her appearance would not have stood out within the population, given that her ACM type was described for most subjects buried in Tr-40 (Arias and Herrera Reference Arias and Herrera2012). In addition, her lifestyle-related osteological and dental markers show similarities with the rest of the individuals of Tr-40, which could suggest she had an aesthetic and performance of quotidian practices that did not differ radically from those of the rest of the inhumed. Therefore, the social role of the woman was likely similar to that of her congeners, and she may have experienced the same stages of socializing as women of a similar age.

In this historical context, it is possible that society expected a woman over 35 years old to have completed certain stages of her life cycle, such as reproduction and caregiving. In Aymara society, the phase of the life cycle associated with reproduction has a name (Tayka) that is linked only to women (Carrasco Reference Carrasco2020). González-Ramírez and colleagues (Reference González-Ramírez, Sáez, Herrera-Soto, Leyton, Miranda, Santana-Sagredo and Uribe-Rodríguez2021) propose that, for the Formative period of Tarapacá, women's labor included biological reproduction as part of the social commandment to produce new members. Therefore, her age at death indicates that she had lived through most of the stages of social life in her community, and her identity construction was based on gender and intersubjectivities appropriate to the time and space in which she lived (Toren Reference Toren2012).

This woman, however, met a sudden and violent end, to judge by the trauma recorded on her cranium. Three fractures were recorded on the left parietal and four on the right parietal and occipital bones (Figure 4; Supplemental Table 2; Herrera Reference Herrera2020). The V-shaped pair of traumas on the left parietal suggest that these blows were struck with an object with a rounded (not sharp), angled edge (Supplemental Figure 4). The similarities in the shape, size, and depth of these two lesions indicate the same angled object was likely used. The other blow to the left parietal shows a smaller depression and a different shape from the first two; hence the blow was probably struck tangentially or with less force than the first two injuries.

Figure 4.

Drawings of the cranial fractures in different views (Tr-40, individual B2140). Numbers indicate impact points.

These three blows caused delamination of the inner table (Supplemental Figure 4), which may have produced intracranial hemorrhaging and loss of consciousness. If the woman lost consciousness, she probably fell, which may have resulted in the radiating and concentric fractures observed in the right parietal caused when her head struck the ground.

The location of the trauma in the lower part of the occipital bone (fragmented by taphonomic factors and partially reconstructed by us) suggests that she was crouching and looking down or lying on the ground when she was struck (see Herrara [Reference Herrera2020] for a 3D model of the skull). These fractures are consistent with successive blows with a blunt, dense object of a small size and undefined shape. These were probably the last blows she received because some of the radiating fractures stop at the depressed fracture in the left parietal, indicating that the earlier trauma stopped the propagation of these occipital fractures (Kranioti Reference Kranioti2015).

Therefore, these traumas are described as the perimortem type; that is, any sign or response to an external stress on fresh bone (wet and greasy) that still maintains its viscoelastic properties (Symes et al. Reference Symes, L'Abbé, Chapman, Wolff, Dirkmaat and Dirkmaat2012). The absence of antemortem fractures related to violence may indicate that she had never been exposed previously to violent events. However, injuries related to physical attacks do not always affect bone tissue. Soft tissue, in contrast, is more likely to be damaged by physical attacks (Judd and Redfern Reference Judd, Redfern and Grauer2012).

We discarded the differential diagnosis of accidental injuries because of the absence of trauma to the postcranial skeleton and the large number of lesions in the ectocranial area, as well as their morphological features. Indeed, previous studies considered multiple cranial traumas as indicators of physical violence (e.g., Lovell Reference Lovell1997; Wedel and Galloway Reference Wedel and Galloway2014). The location of the injuries (lateral and posterior sides of the skull) indicates an attack from behind by one or more assailants. Further, the number of blows suggests the intention to kill the victim.

The traumas of this woman are unique when compared with the pattern of injuries observed in other bodies from Tr-40. Adults of both sexes show injuries associated with nonlethal violence, such as healed fractures in the face probably caused by blows with a fist (Table 2). Some individuals also have oval and depressed fractures on the cranial vault but smaller than those of this woman (Herrera et al. Reference Herrera, Uribe, González-Ramírez, Sáez and Santana-Sagredo2019).

Table 2.

Frequency of Healed Cranial Fractures in the Tarapacá 40 Cemetery.

Note: Data from Herrera and colleagues (Reference Herrera, Uribe, González-Ramírez, Sáez and Santana-Sagredo2019). A significance level of p < 0.05 was used.

We discarded the possibility of a ritual death in this case because there is no evidence of traumas associated with human sacrifice anywhere else in the cemetery, as is described for other regions of the Andes (Standen et al. Reference Standen, Santoro, Bernardo Arriaza, Susana Monsalve, Valenzuela and Marquet2021). We also rejected the possibility that the woman's injuries were caused in the context of raids or warlike events due to the absence of perimortem violence–related injuries in any other individual from Tr-40 or of differential funeral treatment, in contrast to other contexts of lethal violence in northern Chile (Standen et al. Reference Standen, Arriaza, Santoro, Romero and Rothhammer2010).

After her death, she was buried in the cemetery Tr-40, considered to be a necropolis that contains several generations, with individuals representing all ages (González-Ramírez et al. Reference González-Ramírez, Sáez, Herrera-Soto, Leyton, Miranda, Santana-Sagredo and Uribe-Rodríguez2021). Those who attended her funerary rite deposited different types of miniatures, such as pottery, an anthropomorphic figure, basketwork, and textiles, as well as maize cobs, next to her body (Figure 5). The presence of miniatures in Tr-40 is characteristic; they were popular offerings between about AD 200 and 600 (Figure 6; Núñez Reference Núñez1982; Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Agüero, Catalán, Herrera and Santana-Sagredo2015). The miniatures reproduce objects of everyday life and are a representation of habitual socioeconomic practices of the Formative period (Uribe et al. Reference Uribe, Agüero, Catalán, Herrera and Santana-Sagredo2015). Moreover, these funeral offerings reflect the work of expert artisans and the specific knowledge of the Formative populations about the environment and its resources. Therefore, the woman's offerings may suggest a shared social life with the rest of the people buried in the cemetery. Likewise, the ceremonial act of burying her may reflect that she continued to be part of the community—only now from the space of the dead or ancestors who, of course, have agency in the world of the living (Urrutia and Uribe Reference Urrutia and Uribe2021).

Figure 5.

Offerings from the section Y-tomb 1 (Tr-40), individual B2140: (a) ceramic anthropomorphic figurine; (b) representation of a ceramic anthropomorphic figurine associated with an infant burial, which is similar to the figurine buried with woman B2140 (illustration taken from Núñez [Reference Núñez2006] and used with permission of the author); (c) pottery vessel miniature; (d) pottery shards; (e) textile miniatures; (f) basket miniature.

Figure 6.

Offerings from different tombs of cemetery Tr-40 dated to the Late Formative period: (a) fragment of a polychrome ringed cap, fragments of a tunic with diamonds designs on warp and weft, miniature tubular ringed bag, miniature overskirt, miniature basket, and zooarchaeological material; (b) basket section M’-tomb 41; (c) pumpkin type I with pyrographed decoration, section M’-tomb 88; (d) capacho type II.2 section K-tomb 4; (e) capacho miniature type I, section K-tomb 12; (f) miniature baskets, section K-tomb 11.

Based on the funeral treatment and the bioanthropological data, we propose that the woman was a member of the local group. We do so without falling into the antagonistic pairing of “local versus foreign” based only on the environment inhabited (e.g., coast vs. valley). Indeed, a person may have been born on the coast and died in the Pampa del Tamarugal, or vice versa, and still have been part of the same cosmology (Urrutia and Uribe Reference Urrutia and Uribe2021).