The Paleoindian burial from the Brazilian rockshelter site of Toca dos Coqueiros was discovered in July 1997 (Guidon et al., 1998). The site is one of several known Paleoindian sites in the immediate region of the Serra da Capivara National Park, located in the northeastern Brazilian state of Piaui (Guidon and Arnaud, 1991). The interred individual, carrying a calibrated date of 11,060 years BP (conventional radiocarbon age of 9,870 50 years BP; beta 109844; Guidon et al., 1998), is significant in being one of the oldest human skeletons recovered in the New World, and was described as female (Lessa and Guidon, 2002). I had the opportunity to examine the Coqueiros individual and reconstruct the skull. I present illustrative data to support the view that the Coqueiros skeleton represents a gracile male. Comparative craniofacial morphometrics suggest as well that Paleoindian groups living in South America at this distant temporal horizon may not have been closely related to later and recent Amerind populations (Neves and Pucciarelli, 1991; Neves et al., 1998, 1999). Our craniometric evaluation of this individual supports that as well (Nelson et al., in press). The cranial vault and much of the enveloping matrix had been stabilized with B72 resin, as these had been subjected to some crushing and fragmentation over the course of time. They did not, however, appear to be particularly deformed, but much of the vault was obscured by soil matrix impregnated with B72. The loose fragment assemblage included a considerable amount of facial material: nasals, maxillary frontal processes, the left malar, and superorbital portions of the frontal, including the glabella. Several basilar fragments were also present, representing the margins of the foramen magnum, sphenoid alae, portions of the occipital squamous, and temporals. In addition to a significant quantity of diagnostic cranial fragments, the assemblage included numerous postcranial fragments. Among this material was the inferior ramus of the right pubis and enough of the posterior inferior iliac spine to reconstruct the posterior margin of the left greater sciatic notch. In addition, both femoral heads and the right humeral and radial heads were available for study. A full reconstruction of the skull was undertaken. Sections of vault bone and matrix embedded in B72 were soaked in acetone, taken apart, cleaned, dried, and reassembled using a plastic-resin DucoTM cement. Loose craniofacial fragments were sorted, sided, and assembled. The bony facial reconstruction was articulated to the vault reconstruction. On the pelvis, the ventral ramus was reconstructed onto the larger portion of the right pubis in order to aid in identification of sex-based morphology. In addition, the posterior inferior iliac spine was reconstructed back to the left innominate, in order to establish the form of the greater sciatic notch. The greater sciatic notch tends to be wider in females and narrower in males, though Fulginiti (1993) demonstrated variability in this tendency. In the dorsal midline, there is sex-based variability in the morphology of the sacrum as well. In males, the centrum of the first sacral vertebra tends to be wider than the alae, by approximately three-fifths vs. onefifth for alar widths, while in females these widths tend to be more evenly apportioned at one-third each of the total sacral width across the top. In the collections at the Fundacao Museu do Homem Americanos (FUMDHAM) is an unambiguous female Paleoindian skeleton dated to within 1,200 years of Coquieros. Lessa and Guidon (2002) mentioned this individual (Toca da Janela da Barro do Antoniao), but stated that they could not use it for comparison. In addition, an unambiguous female os pubis, from a relatively recent burial context (within the past 500 years), was chosen from the collections for purposes of comparison (Fig. 1). Figure 1 is a comparative photograph of the pubic bones from the Coqueiros, Antoniao, and recent female skeletons. The Antoniao individual is in a poor enough state of preservation that visualizing morphology beyond the width of the ventral surface and a hint of the subpubic angle is challenging. In the recent burial (see above), even though the ventral ramus is poorly reconstructed, form is clearly evident, and the width of the ventral surface of the element (with the attendant ventral arc) and subpubic angle are all clearly visible. These stand in stark
Search from 250 M+ research papersSearch from 250 M+ research papers
Mar 19, 2024
Taisuke Yoshinaga + 6
Open Access