Humans are adapters. We not only adapt ourselves to the environment, more often than not we adapt the environment itself to suit our needs, our wishes, and our ideas. This urge to change does not...Show moreHumans are adapters. We not only adapt ourselves to the environment, more often than not we adapt the environment itself to suit our needs, our wishes, and our ideas. This urge to change does not stop with the environment. The human body itself is often used as a canvas where we express who we are, where we express our identity. This thesis discussed one type of such expression of identity: artificial cranial modification (often abbreviated as "ACM"). As the modification can only be done successfully on individuals younger than three years old, it does not express individual identity but rather the group identity the individual's parents belonged to. This makes cranial modification an interesting field of research, which can tell archaeologists many things about past populations. The two populations studied in this thesis originate from the Bolivian Andes; an area with a high percentage of modified crania but a low percentage of research. The aim of this work is thus to add to the information of cranial modification in the Bolivian Andes, which was done through the study of 60 mostly Tiwanaku-period (500 - 1000 CE) crania from two different Andean regions: the Altiplano, and the Cochabamba valles. The Cochabamba valles, although emulating the Tiwanaku culture, remained very much independent, a fact which is confirmed in the results of this thesis. The most striking difference turned out to be the influence of sex on modification presence, which was found to be statistically significant in the valles sample and not in the Altiplano crania. Other differences were found as well: annular modification is much more frequent in the Altiplano, with tabular being more popular in the valles. The annular types are mostly cylindrical in the valles whereas the conical variant is more common in the Altiplano. Occipitally curved tabular modifications only occur in the Altiplano, with the lambdoidally flattened variant being most common. Frontally curved tabular modifications, then, only occur in the valles. Lastly, erect modifications occurred relatively more in the Altiplano sample, where it made up half of the tabular subtypes, than in the valles. Osteological effects of ACM on the cranium were studied as well. These did not indicate regional results, showing that, all cultural differences aside, the populations were not too different from each other. The non-metric traits that seemed to be influenced by cranial modification in the sample are the prevalence of the left infraorbital foramen, right pterygo-spinous bridge and left tympanic dehiscence, as well as the metopic suture retention. The results show that although the populations lived near, and were in contact with, each other, regional cultural differences do exist. Extrapolating findings of the Altiplano's Tiwanaku culture to the rest of the Bolivian Andes is thus not correct, something that should be kept in mind for future (much needed) research in the area. This thesis was made possible by the archaeological museum INIAM of the Universidad Mayor de San Simón in Cochabamba and the zooarchaeological laboratory from the Universidad Mayor de San Andres in La Paz, which granted access to their collections.Show less
