Gustavo Martínez - José Luis Lanata

Perspectivas Integradoras
entre Arqueologia y Evolucion
Teoria, Metodo y Casos de Aplicacion

Serie Teórica - volúmen 1

INCUAPA
UNC
 Índice
Prefacio .......................................................................................................................9

Cultura Material y Arqueología Evolutiva - Hernán Juan Muscio........................... 21

La Ecología del Comportamiento Como Marco Explicativo

del Consumo de Recursos Faunísticos en el Temprano de la
Puna Salteña - Gabriel E. J. López ...................................................................... .... 55

Ecología Evolutiva y Estrategias Reproductivas de los Pastores Puneños:

Una Aproximación Arqueológica - Carolina Azcune y Mariana Gómez ................. 77

Transmisión Cultural y Persistencia Diferencial de Rasgos.

Un Modelo para el Estudio de la Variación Morfológica de las Puntas de
Proyectíl Lanceoladas de San Antonio de los Cobres, Provincia de Salta,
Argentina. - Marcelo Cardillo ................................................................................... 97

Organización y Cambio en las Estrategias Tecnológicas:

Un Caso Arqueológico e Implicaciones Comportamentales para la
Evolución de las Sociedades Cazadoras-Recolectoras Pampeanas -
Gustavo Martínez ..................................................................................................... 121

The Darwinian Archaeology of Social Norms and Institutions: Issues and

Examples - Stephen Shennan ................................................................................... 157

Cladistics and Archaeological Phylogeny - Michael J. O’Brien, R. Lee Lyman,

and John Darwent ................................................................................................... 175

Un Modelo Evolutivo en Argentina. Resultados y Perspectivas Futuras -

Vivian Scheinsohn .................................................................................................... 187

Evolution, Ecology, and Human Adaptability - James Steele ................................. 207

The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors from an

Evolutionary Perspective: Exploring the Bioarchaeological Record
of Early American Hunter-Gatherers - Gustavo Barrientos ................................... 221

Humans and Evolutionary Dynamics. The Last Decades In Archaeology

and Anthropology - José Luis Lanata ...................................................................... 255
 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related
Behaviors from an Evolutionary Perspective:
Exploring the Bioarchaeological Record of Early
American Hunter-Gatherers
Gustavo Barrientos

RESUMEN
El objetivo del presente trabajo es discutir la estructura del registro bioarqueológico
correspondiente a la transición Pleistoceno tardío-Holoceno temprano (ca. 12000-8000 AP).
Las diversas hipótesis formuladas hasta el presente para explicar el carácter escaso y disperso
de este registro, han tendido a considerar a los problemas de muestreo como una de las
principales causas del mismo. En general, se asume que las poblaciones americanas tempra-
nas debieron poseer pautas de comportamiento referidas al tratamiento de los muertos bá-
sicamente similares a las conocidas, arqueológica y etnográficamente, para los cazadores-re-
colectores holocénicos. Desde esta perspectiva, la notable escaséz de entierros humanos
correspondientes a la transición Pleistoceno tardío-Holoceno temprano sería entonces un
artefacto de las estrategias de muestreo empleadas. Estas no serían lo suficientemente sen-
sibles para aproximarse a un registro generado por poblaciones de pequeño tamaño, muy
móviles y con patrones de utilización espacial probablemente distintos a los de las pobla-
ciones cazadoras-recolectoras más tardías. En particular, existe un extendido rechazo a la
idea de que tales poblaciones pudieran haber practicado el abandono de los cadáveres en
forma regular, ya que tal comportamiento se apartaría de aquel que nos definiría como
humanos. Esta premisa es discutida aquí en base a la aplicación de un conjunto de princi-
pios derivados de la ecología del comportamiento humano, de la teoría de la herencia dual
y del conocimiento actual acerca de la variabilidad de los comportamientos relacionados con
la muerte exhibida por las sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras contemporáneas y prehistóri-

Gustavo Barrientos, CONICET- INCUAPA, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacio-

nal del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Olavarría, Buenos Aires, Argentina. E-mail:
barrilheux@infovia.com.ar

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 Gustavo Barrientos

cas. La idea sustentada en este trabajo es que, si bien los problemas de muestreo pueden
constituir una de las principales causas de la estructura del registro bioarqueológico ameri-
cano temprano, éste puede ser visto como el resultado lógico de la operación de poblacio-
nes humanas altamente móviles, poco densas, sin constreñimientos espaciales y en fase de
expansión geográfica.
En este tipo de sociedades, el abandono de los cadáveres pudo haber sido una práctica
recurrente permitida, pero no necesariamente promovida, por tales propiedades organiza-
cionales.

INTRODUCTION
Historically, the peopling of the Americas has been a subject of archaeological inquiry mostly
devoid of theoretical elaboration. On a great extension, this was probably due to the surprising
subordination of the debate to the oscillating fate of the empirical evidence. Indeed, most of
the discussion about this important issue has been strongly influenced by shifting, and very
often differentially applied standards and criteria of verification, validation and acceptance of
the available evidence (e.g., radiometric dates of early sites, technological features of lithic and
bone artifacts, paleoenvironmental reconstructions, etc.) (Politis 1999). The debate about the
nature of the record of human burials of Late Pleistocene or Early Holocene age in North,
Central and South America is not an exception. The alleged paucity of human remains dating
from the Pleistocene/Holocene transition has been interpreted in many different ways: while
some scholars think that this scarcity of human burials reflects some important behavioral or
organizational pattern of early inhabitants (e.g., Lynch 1990; Butzer 1988), some others think
that it mainly reflects sampling biases (e.g., Dillehay 2000; Dillehay and Meltzer 1991). However,
it is hard to see behind all of those discussions any theoretical framework that allows for the
formulation of clear expectations about how the record might or might not look under specific
sets of circumstances in order to asses the probability value of each alternative hypothesis.
In this paper I will try to demonstrate, from an evolutionary perspective, that
notwithstanding sampling biases surely exist, it is highly probable that the scarce and sparse
nature of the bioarchaeological record of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene age in the
Americas is the most expectable outcome of the operation of highly mobile, low dense,
spatially unconstrained, and expanding human populations (e.g., Anderson and Faught
1998; Anderson and Gillam 2000; Surovell 2000). In order to achieve this goal, I will consider
some principles derived from the human behavioral ecology (Cronk et al. 2000; Smith and

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

Winterhalder 1992a), the dual inheritance theory (Boyd and Richerson 1985, 1992; Cavalli-
Sforza and Feldman 1981; Lumsden and Wilson 1981), specially through the model about
ritual as a causal force in the process of social change developed by Aldenderfer (1993), and
the current knowledge about the variability of mortuary behaviors among contemporary
and prehistoric hunter-gatherers (e.g., Beck 1995; Buikstra and Charles 1999; Carr 1995;
Woodburn 1982).

DEATH-RELATED BEHAVIORS FROM AN

EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
Amongst the most influencing organizational factors that contribute to the structure
of the bioarchaeological record are mortuary practices. For mortuary practices, most
anthropologists and archaeologists mean a complex arrangement of activities, in which the
physical disposal of the body is just one part of a whole that comprise a large amount of
non-material symbolism and lavish non-permanent ritual display (e.g., feasting, elaborate
hearses, presence of significant persons, mourning period, etc.) (Bartel 1982; Binford 1971;
Brown 1995; Trinkaus 1995). Frequently, it is erroneously assumed that the set of behaviors
commonly labeled as “mortuary practices” constitutes some kind of cultural “universal” of
the humankind, a real hallmark of our human condition (e.g., Brown 1995: 18; Dillehay
2000: 234-235; Larsen 1995: 249). I think that there are two basic problems with such an
assumption. On one hand, on epistemological grounds it is legitimate to doubt about the
existence of some “essential” feature shared by all and only the members of any particular
species (Hull 1992; Sober 1992). On the other hand, it is clear that mortuary practices, with
all their symbolic implications, does not fulfill the entire range of behaviors and attitudes
about death exhibited by Homo sapiens. The sparse nature of the bioarchaeological record
of early anatomically modern humans prior to the acquisition of the modern behavioral
patterns, seems to be the result of the commonest death-related behavior observed in other
primate species: to let the corpse unattended onto the ground surface in its very place of
death, letting its natural disarticulation, weathering and decay to happen (e.g., see numerous
examples in Fossey 1985; Goodall 1986, 1993; Strum 1987) 1. Increasing evidence shows
that the origin of mortuary practices seems to be linked to the development of the modern
human cognition at the onset of the Upper Paleolithic, some 35,000 or 40,000 years ago,
since almost all of the alleged evidence for mortuary ritual or even intentional burial in sites
of Middle Paleolithic age involving both, Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis, can be seriously
challenged (Benditt 1989; Chase and Dibble 1987; Gargett 1989, 1999; Noble and Davidson

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 Gustavo Barrientos

1996; cf. Hovers et al. 2000; Riel-Salvatore and Clark 2001). Even in the case of modern,
contemporary people, there is an enormous diversity in the degree of ritualization and
complexity of the behaviors related to death as well as in the factors that determine the
character that mortuary practices may adopt in each society and in each particular situation
(Carr 1995). In fact, the ethnographic record largely shows that there are people who invest
much time, energy and resources in funerary activities, while there are some others who
invest very few and, occasionally, virtually nothing at all (see examples in Steward 1948, and
Sturtevant 1981, 1985).
Given the demonstrable fact that mortuary practices cannot be considered a universal
feature of human behavior, it is important to make a distinction between this term, and
the more inclusive one “death-related behaviors”. For death-related behaviors, I mean a set
of attitudes about death and the dead that includes mortuary practices as well as other
non-ritualized behaviors. They may cover a wide spectrum, ranging from the simple
abandonment of corpses to the most elaborated ritual displays. If we assume that mortuary
practices are not universal among anatomically modern humans, it is relevant to ask about
the reasons why such behavioral complex evolved, and about the probable socioecological
context in which it did. From an evolutionary point of view, the relevant question is: why
people use to invest time, energy and resources in dealing with non-still productive, non-
still reproductive members of his/her group?
Among humans, the disposal of the dead in a form other than the simple abandonment
is, usually, a social activity that very often detracts individuals from their engagement in
other tasks. The fact that some of these other postponed tasks possess some adaptive
value (e.g., mate finding, food acquisition, predator avoidance, etc.), seems to imply that
the intentional disposal of dead is also an adaptive behavior, increasing or enhancing -under
specific sets of circumstances- the fitness of the individual participants. For instance, one
recurrent element in many -but not all- contemporary cultures is the burying or removal to
a distant location of the deceased’s corpse (e.g., to a cave, a platform, or a tree), followed by
the destruction of his/her possessions, the abandonment or destruction of the house where
the death occurred and, sometimes, the movement of the entire group to a new location.
All these behaviors act, among other things, avoiding the prolonged contact of the living
with the body or the possessions of the deceased, reducing the chance of acquisition and
transmission of any infectious disease. The persistence and spreading of such behaviors
can be explained by the fact that all those who adopted them would somehow have a higher
probability of surviving hence more offspring on average. The offspring, in turn, would
be likely to culturally inherit the behavior (sensu Boyd and Richerson 1985, 1992), thus
increasing their frequency in the population over time.

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

If, as we have seen, one important component of mortuary practices -the intentional
disposal of the body- has some relationship with the fitness of the individual practitioners
via increased probabilities of survival and reproduction, it can be proposed that the
socioecological context most appropriated for the successful replication of such a behavior
was probably linked to the origins of the campsite organization characteristic of the modern
(i.e. post-Middle Paleolithic) human foragers (Farizy 1994; Soffer 1994). The recurrent use
of places that this kind of organization generally implies, specially in the short-term (e.g.,
on a daily basis), might confer a higher adaptive value (i.e. fitness-enhancing) to behaviors
that tend to eliminate the presence of decaying bodies -potential foci of infection and
pollution- from the most redundantly occupied points on the landscape. However, it is
clear that neither humans nor other animals actually hold fitness maximization as a goal
(Smith and Winterhalder 1992b). In fact, they may act as utility maximizers, in the sense of
seeking to increase the relative amount of satisfaction derived from consumption of any
valuable good (e.g., food, mating opportunities, wealth, prestige, ideals, etc.) (Smith and
Winterhalder 1992b: 46), but they are fitness maximizers only to the extent that the utility
functions defined by their evolved cognitive and emotional capabilities are correlated with
fitness. Humans, particularly, use to behave according to some belief or preference, sometimes
acting as rational decision-makers, but very often simply following some unexplained
customary reason (e.g., a tradition). We must note that, in the above depicted scenario, for
behaviors related to dead disposal to persist, there is no need of an awareness of the
participants about the relationship between potential foci of pollution or infection and their
health status or well-being (e.g., rational decision-making aimed to prevent spread of a
disease), since all that is required is that people act consequently with some particular belief
(e.g., avoidance of harmful ghosts) or custom (e.g., an ancestral tradition). The expected
effect on fitness would be the same, independently of the motives (rational decision-making
or traditional belief) lying behind the actor’s behaviors.
Since mortuary practices need the investment of time, effort and resources, they can be
considered as a relatively costly kind of activity. From this perspective, it is reasonable to
think that, for people to engage in it, they must to expect to obtain or to maximize some
utility or benefit, whatever it would be (e.g., material, social, spiritual, etc.). A number of
research show that, in fact, mortuary practices function as a strategy set by the living to
solve any number of social problems, reallocating the rights and duties amongst themselves
(Barret 1990: 182; Brown 1995: 19), and taking very often a political and a economic role
(Metcalf and Huntington 1991; Precourt 1984). Moreover, from a cross-cultural perspective
Binford (1971) and Goldstein (1976) have shown rather convincingly that mortuary practices
respond to economic conditions and scale of political and demographic organization of

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each society (see also Aries 1981; Chaunu 1978; Vovelle 1974). Properties like the size, effort,
or duration of the funerary activities usually respond to budgeting considerations measured
in terms of time, effort and resources, for which there is a fixed upper limit set by every
society (Brown 1995: 20). In small-scale societies with low energy budgets, as most of hunter-
gatherer societies are, this limit tends to be relatively low. In such societies we can expect
that, when the cost of dead’s disposal (e.g., transportation, cremation, burial, etc.) outweighs
the expected, perceived benefits (whatever they would be), it may well be possible that the
corpse receives little attention, or does not receives any particular treatment at all. The
abandonment of the body, the extreme example of cost minimization, is expected to persist
through time only when there are no spatial and/or demographic constraints that put alive
persons into tight contact with decaying bodies for a prolonged period of time, or where
the rate of tissue decay onto the ground surface be sufficiently high to prevent or diminish
infectious risk for the living. The ethnographic record shows that the abandonment of bodies
seems to be more frequent among contemporary hunter-gatherer groups living in arctic or
sub-arctic environments, with population densities well below 1.5 inhabitants/100 km 2 [e.g.,
the Kaska (Honigmann 1981), the Chipewyan (Smith 1981), the Kutchin (Vanstone 1974)
and the Copper Inuit (Damas 1985); see Kelly (1995)]. Among equatorial and tropical
foragers the abandonment of corpses may be a behavior allowed -but obviously not
promoted- by the intense saprophytic activity of their environments. As a rather selected
example, I can cite the Botocudo, a hunter-gatherer group living chiefly in the forests of
southeastern Brazil (effective temperature= 18ºC, population density= 11 inhabitants/100
km2), that used to abandon the corpse in the dwelling or left it in the forest with a few
belongings (Manizer 1919; quoted by Métraux 1948: 537).
As a social strategy, some societies use to place the dead in the service of creating ideology
(e.g., about social order, economic duties, land tenure, and so forth; Bloch and Parry 1982).
In these cases, mortuary practices are generally invested of symbolic meanings and elaborated
ritual deployments (Metcalf and Huntington 1991; Pearson 1982; Shanks and Tilley 1982).
Again, population density, mobility and subsistence patterns do appear determining the
scale of expression of ritual behavior. Among low dense, mobile hunter-gatherers,
individual rituals tend to be more important than the communal ones (Vanstone 1974).
Instead, among lesser mobile and more concentrated hunter-gatherer groups ritual usually
is a collective, communal behavior (Levy 1998). How and why the concentration of
population has the potential to change the scale and degree of complexity of ritual behavior?
In his discussion about ritual as an agent of both stability and change in foraging societies,
Aldenderfer (1993) points out that social groups that are able to mobilize certain kind of
behavior towards some group ends, may well have some competitive advantage relative to

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

groups that do not, and further, such advantage provides a powerful incentive for
cooperation and for the cultural transmission of such behavior (Aldenderfer 1993: 6; see
also Boyd and Richerson 1985). The ritual activities, specially the communal ones, may act
providing a symbolical and physical linkage between individuals, promoting cooperation
and often limiting the perception or reality of social differentiation. They constitute an
effective means of justification of both, the existence and extension, of hierarchies and
inequalities into social groups (Aldenderfer 1993). In the case of small-scale societies, the
existing inequalities are mainly based on attributes like age, gender, kinship, generation,
reproductive success, skills, and so on (Flanagan 1989), and refer to differences in the access
to some resources, like position, commodity, control of force, trade goods, women,
knowledge, competency, legitimacy or prestige (Paynter 1989: 383). Dual inheritance theory
as formulated by Boyd and Richerson (1985, 1992) predicts that when such differences arise,
individuals will tend to “exploit” it whenever possible for their own benefit, and for the
benefit of theirs closest kin. This exploitation will be resisted by others individuals through
different mechanisms oriented to dissipate social tension or stress, such as mobility and
social fissioning. However, when mobility no longer remains a viable or a low-cost option
-as a result of the arising of some form of circumscription (Price and Brown 1985)-
individual may be more likely to accept greater wealth and status under the control of few
individuals, and even the extension of an existing hierarchy into another social field
(Aldenderfer 1993: 32). In small band groups, there are relatively few hierarchies, hence few
potential competitors for the control of ritual power, usually in the hands of the shaman
or other similar ritual practitioner. In more complex foraging societies, however, there is an
increase in the number of competitors for prestige, status and wealth, categories that are
not only defined by ritual, but also by occupational specialty, and by control of lineage
formation. Particularly linked to the formation of corporated kin groups or lineages is the
apparition of a special form of mortuary practice called “ancestor cult” (Morris 1991). It
refers to those rituals that provide continued access to the deceased in the afterworld. The
ancestors, in this sense, continue to be engaged in the affairs of their descendants, as
participants in social, political and economic relationships (Buikstra and Charles 1999: 204).
Finally, its important to call attention on the fact that there are some proofs that the
increasing ritualization of dead disposal would also be linked to different forms of scalar
stress (i.e. ecological, technological, or organizational), requiring the attainment of new levels
of cooperation and integration within a social group (Bernardini 1998; Bodley 1999). Scalar
stress is information overload created by an increase in the number of participants in the
decision-making process, a phenomenon usually related to population density. Kosse (1990)
cites ethnographic evidence that in family-level groups, where local settlements are unlikely

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 Gustavo Barrientos

to exceed 150 people, all adults can participate in decision making. In order for settlements
to reach a population of 500, only the adult men are likely to be involved in public decision
making, and they draw on ritual support and descent groups. Ritual, a stable pathway for
information flow, is one means of alleviating scalar stress (Laughlin et al. 1979). In this
context, mortuary practices that involve increasing ritualization and symbolism (e.g., ancestor
cult) are likely correlates of aggregation. Byrd and Monahan (1994), for instance, discussing
the changes in south-central Levant Natufian social structure, found that in early Natufian
-a period in which large populations rapidly coalesced and resided together for longer periods
each year, increasing the probabilities of approaching some scalar threshold-, an intra-
settlement descent group differentiation developed, perhaps along extended family or kin-
group lines. The mortuary behavior changed significantly during late Natufian and Pre-
pottery Neolithic A, with a remarkable increase in secondary mortuary practices and ancestor
cults. This change was interpreted by Kujit (1996) as the expression of a powerful and
ritualized communal act that symbolically and physically linked the communities and limited
the perception of increasingly social differentiation. The specific ecological, technological,
demographic or organizational limits that need to be approached for some form of scalar
stress to appear, and for the subsequent crossing of an scalar threshold by any social group
or population, remains to be determined (Bodley 1999; Johnson 1982; Kosse 1990, 1994).
However, there can be little doubt that differences in the scale of social interaction are
important factors determining the expression and meaning of mortuary ritual.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF DEATH-RELATED

BEHAVIORS AMONG HUNTER-GATHERERS
As we have seen, death-related behaviors comprise material and non-material correlates.
From an archaeological point of view, the patterned relationships (temporal as well as spatial)
of the material derivatives of these behaviors (e.g., human skeletal remains, grave goods
and furniture, etc.) are the main evidence available to infer and interpret the non-material
correlates of death-related behaviors (e.g., symbolic meanings, philosophical-religious ideas,
beliefs, etc.) as well as other dimensions of the organization of human societies (e.g., social,
political, economical, demographic, etc.). In order to establish proper inferential devices, it
is important to discover the relevant linkages that exist between some organizational
properties of human societies and the way in which individuals and groups take decisions
regarding the treatment of their dead. In the following discussion, I will specifically focus
on the relationships between two important organizational properties of hunter-gatherer

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective
70
societies -regional population
Number of residential movements per Year

(n=128; R= -.71; p<.001)

60 density and degree and type
50 of mobility- and one
40 material expression of death-
30 related behaviors -the
20
physical disposal of the body,
mainly in the form of burial.
10

0 Amongst hunter-
-10
gatherers, demography and
-100 100 300 500 700 900 1100
Population Density (inhabitants per 100km ) mobility are intimately linked
2

Source: Kelly (1995)

to one each other. As a
Figure 1. The number of residential movements per year plotted
against the population density (inhabitants per 1000 km ) in a number of archaeological and
2

worldwide sample of 128 hunter-gatherer societies. ethnoarchaeological research

have shown, mobility is a
multidimensional and multiscalar phenomenon (Kelly 1992). It may refer either to individuals
or to groups, to daily activities or annual settlement rounds, or even to life cycle rounds.
Space and time define the two main dimensions of the individual and group scale of
movement. Particularly in the case of annual settlement and life-cycle rounds, the spatial
dimension of mobility depends on the availability of space, which in turn depends on the
quantity of persons inhabiting a given region. The population density of any given portion
of space, and that of its neighboring areas, clearly set the limit to the movements, especially
at the group-level. For instance, Figure 1 shows that in a sample of 128 hunter-gatherer
societies inhabiting different 70000
environments in all 60000
(n=54; R= -.55; p<.001)
Total Area Covered per Year (km2)

continents, there is a 50000

significant, inverse, non-
40000
lineal relationship (Spearman
30000
Rank Order Correlation R=
20000
-0.71; p< 0.001) between the
10000
regional population density
0
(inhabitants per 100 km 2)
and the number of -10000
-10 40 90 140 190 240 290

residential movements per

2
Population Density (inhabitants per 100km )
Source: Kelly (1995)
year. At the same time, Figure 2. The dimensions of the annual ranges (total area covered
Figure 2 shows the existence per year) plotted against the population density (inhabitants per
of a something lesser inverse 1000 km ) in a worldwide sample of 54 hunter-gatherer societies.
2

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 Gustavo Barrientos

correlation between the regional population density and the dimensions of the annual ranges
(in km2) (n= 54; R= -0.55; p<0.001).
Now, how population density and mobility can affect the behaviors related to death,
and hence the very structure of the bioarchaeological record?. In the previous section of
this paper I tried to show that, except for the case of the abandonment of the deceased’s
body all others death-related behaviors have some associated cost. Since the scale of the
society set budgetary limits to the expenditure of time, effort and resources allocated to any
activity, it is reasonable to think that population density will act as a powerful constraint for
the material expression of mortuary practices. At low levels of population density, we can
expect funerary activities of lower cost than those expected under higher levels of population
density. We can also expect a tendency to cost minimization under conditions of high
residential mobility and a low redundancy in the occupation of places. When there is a low
expectation of returning to specific places, a situation allowed by low population densities
and null or little spatial circumscription, relatively costly funerary activities like the defleshing
or mummification of the body, the transportation of the deceased’s body over middle to
long distances, or the conspicuous demarcation of the graves may have a very low probability
of occurrence. Instead, it is probably that behaviors that pull the cost minimization to its
logical extreme -the abandonment of the body- might have more chances of successful
replication, specially where there are environmental factors promoting the fast degradation,
hiding or disappearance of
the corpses. Figure 3 shows
n=33
that, for a sample of 33 YES/NO
YES= 6,72 +/- 14,83
NO= 2,37 +/- 2,16
contemporary North
American hunter-gatherers
living in arctic, subarctic and
Burial

NO
cold temperate environments
(similar to those inferred for
many Late Pleistocene
environments in both North YES
and South America), the -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
groups that tend to not bury Population Density (inhabitants per 100km ) 2

Source: Kelly (1995), Stutevant (1981,1985)

their dead (by means of
abandonment or other form
of body disposal like the use
of trees, platforms, etc.) have
an average population
Figure 3. Distribution of positive and negative cases of burial
practices among a sample of 33 North American hunter-gatherer
societies living in arctict, subarctic and cold temperate
environments plotted against the population density (inhabitants
per 1000 km2).

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

density of 2.37 ± 2.16 inhabitants/100 km 2, while those that practice different forms of
burial (e.g., graves, cairns, etc.) have a higher value of average population density (6.72 ±
14.83 inhabitants/100 km 2). Notwithstanding the absence of a statistically significant
difference between both averages (Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Test; p>0.05), it seems that there
is some empirical base supporting the claim about the existence of some trend in the
relationship between burial and population density under certain, specific environmental
conditions.
In relation to the content and spatial distribution of burial sites across any given region,
it is possible to hypothesize that, (a) the number of places that are used for the disposal of
the dead will tend to be positively correlated with the number of annual residential movements;
and, (b) the number of individuals buried in a particular place will tend to be negatively
correlated with the number of annual residential movements. In other words, these two
hypotheses predict that as the number of residential movements per year increases, a greater
number of sites at the regional level used for the disposal of the dead will tend to exist, each
of them with a progressively lower number of burials. Nevertheless, these two statements
may not be true in all situations. Among the factors affecting their validity are the size of the
region being used by a hunter-gatherer population, and the degree and type of re-occupation
of particular places in the landscape. We can expect that these two hypotheses will tend to be
true in situations in which the size of the annual ranges and the total size of the region
exploited be relatively big, and the degree of re-occupation of places be low.
Since high population density very often leads to an increase in population pressure (i.e.
increase in population in relation to available food resources), which in turn acts forcing the
hunter-gatherer groups to intensify their economies and reorganize their societies in many
different ways (Keeley 1988), it is clear that it will also affect the material dimension of
mortuary practices. The increases in social inequality and differentiation, in the accumulation
of goods and wealth, in the levels of cooperation, control and conflict, and the decreasing
of mobility that usually accompany the raising of population pressure, will obviously set
a new scale for the material expression of mortuary ritual and symbolism. One of the social
correlates of increasing inequality and differentiation inside hunter-gatherer groups, probably
in response to increases in population pressure, is the arising of lineages. Lineages are
demographically based hierarchies that tend to concentrate power and inequality in the hands
of elder males. In practice, this inequality frequently translates into individuals with more
wives, and therefore with a greater possibility of creating a larger kin group, enhanced access
to a greater sphere of the means of production through inheritance of lands or herds, and
the concentration of various kinds of sacred power into the hands of a few individuals

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 Gustavo Barrientos

(Lee 1990: 239-240). Among the better known archaeological correlates of the existence of
lineages among hunter-gatherers are the formalized burial grounds or cemeteries (Goldstein
1976; Saxe 1970). Following the operational definition proposed by Pardoe (1988), a formal
disposal area or cemetery, in the context of hunter-gatherer societies, could be characterized
as a functionally specific and bounded area designed for the disposal of a significant number
of individuals (tens or hundreds), with a high degree of spatial contiguity between graves.
A functional interpretation of such kind of site emphasize its use as territorial markers. In
this sense, the claims to permanent use and control of critical resources would be established
and justified by the presence of the ancestors (Chapman 1981, 1995; Pardoe 1988; cf. Carr
1995: 183).
The practice of secondary burial -which very often implies complex treatment of the
bodies, a variable amount of time between the individual’s death and his/her final
interment, and the transportation of the remains from one place to another one or even to
several places before their final disposal- seems also to be related with increasing levels of
social complexity. According to Goldstein (1995), the double disposal of bodies can result
either because of circumstantial factors (e.g., the death occurring in a place far away from the
campsite or the disposal area), or because of the group affiliation of the individual. In the
second case, the secondary burial could imply a change in the attitude towards the dead,
encompassing a great deal of creative labour employed in memorializing the deceased
(ancestor cult), and more elaborated funeral ceremonies. At the same time, the double
disposal tends to be correlated with reduced mobility (Goldstein 1995), and the emergence
of formal disposal areas or cemeteries (see examples in Hamilton 1982; O’Shea 1984).
As a way of resuming the archaeological implicances of the issues above discussed, Figure
4 shows the expectable
differences in death-related More probable death-related behaviors
- body abandonment
behaviors between hunter- - primary burial
- no body transportation
gatherers with low population low population density - no grave demarcation
high residential mobility - little segregation of disposal areas relative to other
density and high residential activity areas
- low rate of body inhumation at any particular place
mobility, and those with higher
- primary and secondary burial
population density and reduced - body transportation
high population density - grave demarcation
residential mobility. A great deal low residential mobility - higher spatial segregation of disposal areas
- higher rate of body inhumation at any particular place
of research still remains to be - formal disposal areas

done in order to asses absolute

Figure 4. General expectations relative to death-related
values for “high” and “low” behaviors under different socioecological conditions among
levels of both, population hunter-gatherers.

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

density and mobility. However, what is “low” or “high” may vary on each specific context,
being relative to other ecological variables like the regional structure of resources.

EXAMINING THE BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD OF

THE PLEISTOCENE/HOLOCENE TRANSITION IN THE
AMERICAS
In order to construct a bioarchaeological database corresponding to the Pleistocene/
Holocene transition, I made a survey of the edited literature available for North-Central
and South America. For each site in the sample, information was recorded regarding the
geographical location (political-administrative district and country), the most probable date
(whether by radiocarbon, stratigraphy or context), the environmental setting of the burials
(e.g., open air, cave), the type of burial (e.g., primary, secondary, cremation), the presence or
absence of funerary goods, the estimated minimum number of individuals per site, and
the sex and age distribution of each sample. The period chosen for sampling was the interval
between 13,000 and 8500 radiocarbon years BP. I privilege for inclusion in the sample those
cases in which at least one radiocarbon date on human bone remains was available. At the
same time, I tried to not include in the sample sites in which the association between the
materials used for radiocarbon dating and the human skeletal remains was not completely
certain, unless there was a relatively strong evidence supporting claims of contemporaneity.
For the sake of comparison, a selected data set corresponding to the 8500-4500 BP interval
(Early/Middle Holocene) was also reunited. I find that in many cases, the information
available was scattered and insufficiently published, being therefore the data presented below
as precise - or, I might add, as imprecise - as the original sources. However, they give an
approximate idea of the structure of the record at a continental scale.
Table 1 shows that there are at least 21 sites with human remains dated with a reasonable
degree of confidence between 13,000 and 8500 radiocarbon BP. Seventeen of them are in
North America, and the remaining 4 in South America. Most of the sampled burials (62
%) are located in diverse open air settings, such as river or creek banks, alluvial fans or even
in quarries (e.g., Buhl, Idaho, USA). The remaining burials (38 %) are in cave or rockshelter
deposits, being the difference between these two percentages statistically significant (one
sided test; p= 0.012). The total MNI is 32. The age profile of the sample is the following:
19 adults, 12 subadults, and 1 undetermined. Among the adults, 16 are female, 7 are males
and 8 are undetermined. The predominant type of burial is the primary, being remarkable
the absence of secondary burials. A minor fraction of the total is suspected to be of natural

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 Table 1. Archaeological Sites with Human Burials Older than 8500 Radiocarbon Years BP.
Site Location Chronology Depositional Burial Funerary N Sex Age References
(years BP) Environment Goods
Midland Texas, USA 12,400-10,800*** open air P ? 1 F A Holliday and Meltzer 1993
Arlington Springs California, USA 11,500-10,000* open air, stream P ? 1 F A Wiesner 1999
channel
Wilson-Leonard Texas, USA 11,000-9000* open air, alluvial P Yes 1 F A Collins et al. 1993
fan
Buhl Idaho, USA 10,800* open air, quarry P Yes 1 F SA Green et al. 1998
Marmes Rockshelter Washington, USA 10,800-10,400* rockshelter C No 1 ? SA Sheppard et al. 1987
Anzick Montana, USA 10,800-8000* open air P Yes 2 M-? SA Owsley et al. 1999
Pampa de los Fósiles 13 Cupisnique, Perú 10,200** open air P Yes 2 M A-SA Chauchat 1988
Warm Mineral Spring Florida, USA 10,000** cave, underwater ? ? 3 M-F A Powell et al. 1999
Gustavo Barrientos

Sueva 1 Cundinamarca, 10,000** rockshelter P Yes 1 F A Correal Urrego 1979

Colombia
Sauk Valley Minnesota, USA 10,000-8500** open air, river P ? 1 M A Powell and Steele 1994
bank

234
Shifting Sands Texas, USA 10,000-8500** open air, dune? ? ? 1 ? SA Powell and Steele 1994
Grimes Point Nevada, USA 9700** rockshelter P ? 1 M SA Powell and Steele 1994
Gordon Creek Colorado, USA 9700* open air, creek P ? 1 F A Swedlund and Anderson
bank 1999
Whitewater Draw Arizona, USA 9600* open air, river P ? 2 F-F A-A Powell and Steele 1994
bank
Horn Shelter Texas, USA 9600* rockshelter P Yes 2 M-F A-SA Young et al. 1987
Wizards Beach Nevada, USA 9500-9200* open air, lake P No 1 M A Owsley and Jantz 1999
bed
Spirit Cave Nevada, USA 9400* cave deposit P Yes 2 M-F A-SA Owsley and Jantz 1999
Lapa Vermelha IV Minas Gerais, 9300* cave deposit T? No 1 F A Powell et al. 1999
Brasil
Rancho La Brea California, USA 9000* open air, tar pit T? No 1 F A Smith 1976
Baño Nuevo Aysén, Chile 9000-8500* cave deposit P No 5 M-F A-SA Mena and Reyes 1998
Browns Valley Minnesota, USA 8700* open air, gravel P ? 1 M A Powell and Steele 1994
References: (*) 14C dates over human bone collagen; (**) Dated by context; (***) Uranium Series date; P: primary, T: taphonomic, C: cremation; F: female, M:
male; A: adult, SA: subadult.
Caveat: Due to the limited space availability the list of bibliographic references is not exhaustive, so some of the information described in the table may not be in
the cited papers.
 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

or taphonomic origin (Lapa Vermhela IV Hominid 1, and Rancho La Brea; Prous and Fogaça
1999; Smith 1976). One case is a natural mummy (Spirit Cave, Nevada). The funerary goods
present in at least 7 burials, are mainly composed by lithic and bone artifacts.
The archaeological visibility and the demographic profile of the Late Pleistocene/Early
Holocene sample sharply contrast with that corresponding to the early/middle Holocene
transition (ca. 8000-6000 radiocarbon years BP) (Table 2). In fact, in the two millennia
previous to the Altithermal or Hypsithermal climax, both in North and South America
there was an increasing tendency to the formation of sites with a high concentration of
burials, very often containing the remains of tens or hundreds of people. A few of them
seem to represent more or less specialized and formalized burial grounds. These sites tend
to be concentrated in inland and coaster habitats situated at low to middle latitude (between
lat. 0º and 40º North and South), mainly in open-air settings. In Florida (USA) for instance,
the burial sites from the early and middle Archaic period are situated adjacent to larger wetland
environments, such as rivers and marshes, like in Windover. At this site primary, flexed
burials were placed in peat-producing ponds or sloughs, pinned down with wooden stakes,
and interred with burial goods ranging from finely constructed fabric to antler atlatl hooks
(Doran and Dickel 1988). In coastal Ecuador, burial patterns found at OGSE-80, an
inhumation site in Santa Elena where the remains of almost 200 individuals were buried
between 8000 and 6700 BP, included “shamanic” stones buried with re-interred skeletons
or secondary burials (Stothert 1985). In southern Peru and northern Chile, the Chinchorro
people, a little known fisherfolk who inhabited a 400-mile stretch of South American coast,
began at around 7000 ago to mummifying their dead. It usually was accomplished by
eviscerating the corpses, defleshing the bones and reassembling the body, by reinforcing
the structure with sticks, replacing internal organs with clay, camelid fibers, and dried plants,
Table 2. Selected Early/Middle Holocene Archaeological Sites with Human Burials (8500-4500 Radiocarbon Years BP).

Chronology Depositional
Site Location N Sex Age References
(14C years BP) Environment
Santana do Riacho Minas Gerais, Brasil 8500-8200 rockshelter 40 M-F A-SA Kipnis 1998; Prous and
Fogaça 1999; Fiedel 2000
Wendorf 1993;
Mostin California, USA 8400-6300 open-air 54 M-F A-SA
Department of the Interior,
National Park Service 2000
OGSE-80 Santa Elena, Ecuador 8000-6700 open-air 192 M-F A-SA Stothert 1985
Arroyo Seco 2 Buenos Aires, Argentina 8000-6300 open-air 44 M-F A-SA Barrientos 1997; Barrientos
and Politis 2002
La Paloma Chilca, Peru 7800-5100 open-air 201 M-F A-SA Benfer 1999

Windover Florida, EEUU 7500-7000 open-air 168 M-F A-SA Doran and Dickel 1988

Tequendama I Cundinamarca, 7200-5800 open-air 21 M-F A-SA Correal Urrego and van der
Colombia Hammen 1977

Morro-1 Arica, Chile 7000-4500 open-air 96 M-F A-SA Allison et al. 1984; Rivera
1995

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 Gustavo Barrientos

and re-creating muscles with thin bundles of wild reeds and sea grasses. Many of the
mummies had clay masks with carefully modeled facial features and clay sexual organs, and
wore elaborate clay helmets or wigs of human hair some two feet in length. So far some
280 Chinchorro artificial and natural “mummies” have been found at cemeteries such as
Morro-1, Quiani-1, Camarones-14, and Patillos, being those of the called “black style” the
earliest known ones (ca. 7050-4500 BP) (Allison et al. 1984; Rivera 1995). The site of La
Paloma (12b-VII-613), Chilca Valley, Peru is located very close to the Pacific Ocean, and covers
the period between 7800 to 4700 B.P. The skeletons and teeth of 201 individuals were
excavated from in and around over 50 domestic structure in 1900 square meters of
excavations (Benfer 1999). In the Argentinean Pampas, Arroyo Seco 2 represents a site
intensively -but not exclusively- used between ca. 8000 to 6000 BP for the inhumation of
more than 40 individuals. They are mainly distributed in primary, flexed, burials, either single
or multiple, many of them associated to red ochre and personal belongings (e.g., necklaces).
Some of the bodies have also caliche stones surrounding or covering them (Barrientos 1997;
Barrientos and Politis 2001). Two secondary burials, both single and multiple, were also
discovered. However, there are some reasons to believe that they are not contemporary with
the rest of the burials, probably corresponding to the beginnings of the late Holocene
(Barrientos 1997). The only cemetery in a rockshelter deposit from this period is Santana
do Riacho, in the Lagoa Santa region in central Brazil. In this site, at least 40 individuals
have been recovered. Just one radiocarbon date (charcoal sample) from the Burial XII has
yielded an age exceeding the 8500 years BP (Prous 1992; Kipnis 1998). The remaining burials
may probably have an age between 8500 and 8200 BP (Prous and Fogaça 1999; Fiedel 2000).
As a conclusion, we can say that the bioarchaeological record of the Pleistocene/Holocene
transition in the Americas is sparse, both temporally and spatially, as it was previously
suggested by many authors. It is mainly characterized by primary, single burials, although
multiple burials (rarely with more than two individuals) do also exist. The cases of cremation
or those of taphonomic origin are rare. The sex ratio tends to be lightly unbalanced, being
the females cases more frequent than males cases. The age profile does also looks unbalanced,
being the adults more represented than the subadults. All the available evidence points to
the existence of marked differences respect to the record corresponding to the early/middle
Holocene transition, principally in the scale, internal organization, and diversity of the burial
sites. From around 8500 to 6000 radiocarbon years BP on, there are rising levels of diversity
in the type of sites with human burials across both subcontinents. While most of the
bioarchaeological record from this period continues to reflecting the functioning of mobile
low dense foraging societies, there is clear evidence indicating the presence in some particular
regions, of true formal disposal areas or cemeteries, associated to a less mobile, economically

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

sea-oriented way of life [e.g., northern Chilean coast (Rivera 1995) and Central Coast of
Peru (Benfer 1999)]. At the same time in other places there are sites with equally high
concentration of burials that, however, cannot be considered true cemeteries due to their
lack of functional specificity and internal organization. In those cases, the burials grounds
would be viewed as ritualized central places, allowing to relatively small-scale, less
circumscribed hunter-gatherer groups to maintain integrated social and mating networks in
the absence of clear centripetal forces of economic or subsistence origin (e.g., Argentinean
Pampas; Barrientos and Politis 2002).

DISCUSSION
As I argued in the introduction of this paper, the issue concerning to the meaning of
the scarce and sparse nature of the record of human skeletal remains of Pleistocene and
Early Holocene age in the Americas, has been a subject of debate for many years (e.g., Dillehay
and Meltzer 1991; Lynch 1990; Dillehay 2000; Dillehay et al. 1992; Butzer, 1988; Turner 1985).
In a recent and very comprehensive work, Dillehay (2000) advanced a series of hypotheses
in order to explain the remarkable paucity of early human skeletal remains. According to
this author (Dillehay 2000: 231), such alternative and, in some extent, complementary
hypotheses, are:
1) methodological (sampling) biases;
2) low or null archaeological visibility of early burials;
3) destructive or inconspicuous mortuary practices (e.g., abandoning of the deceased);
4) sample contamination in radiocarbon dating of human bone collagen;
5) a combination of some, or all, of the aforementioned factors.
After discussing each hypothesis, Dillehay (2000: 231-235) concluded that the most
probable explanation that accounts for the scarcity of Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene human
burials in the Americas is one of a methodological nature. It may consist on sampling
biases that historically deviated the survey from the more probable burial locations, due to
an alleged, but largely unjustified knowledge about where the early American inhabitants
lived or buried their dead. According to Dillehay, a pattern of body disposal could be
identified in the early bioarchaeological record, one consisting on a lack of utilization for
burial activities of camp sites, specially caves and rockshelters, quarries and hunting sites.
The alleged absence of burials in such locations (something that is not completely true; see
Table 1) would imply the probable use for funerary activities of other settings like sand

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 Gustavo Barrientos

dunes, rocky crevices, swamps, bogs, sinkholes, creeks or canyons (Dillehay 2000: 234). In
particular, Dillehay emphatically rejects his third hypothesis, which is the existence of
mortuary practices that included some seemingly “non-human” behaviors like the
abandoning of the dead (Dillehay 2000: 234). He argues that the idea of a society that used
to not bury their dead does not only defies some of the traditional occidental definitions
about what makes us humans, but also implies the acceptance of some sort of cultural
“devolution”, since apparently the early European and Asiatic buried their dead in caves
and performed some funerary rituals (Dillehay 2000: 234).
While I can accord with Dillehay that much of the current structure of the
bioarchaeological record of early Americans is strongly influenced by sampling biases, I cannot
accord with his suggestion that the abandonment of corpses can be considered a “non-
human” behavior, and that this attitude about death and the dead cannot accounts -partially
at least- for the observed structure of that record. In an earlier section of this paper I
discussed the reasons in virtue of which the bury of the dead, or any other form of
intentional body disposal, cannot be considered a universal feature of the human behavior.
Since, as I argued, death-related behaviors respond in some way to rational decision-making
processes in which cost/benefit considerations very often plays an important role, it is clear
that they cannot be conceived solely from a normative point of view, but also from a
situational one. From this perspective, the notion of cultural “devolution” associated to
the plausible fact that the early Americans, under certain circumstances, actually did not buried
their dead is incorrect and misleading. The fact that some (but not all) European and Asiatic
Upper Paleolithic human populations buried their dead and performed funerary rituals,
does not automatically implies that early Americans must to have done it in a similar fashion.
I am not arguing here that all early Americans used to not bury their dead. Rather, I am
arguing that the abandonment of corpses could have been a death-related behavior with a
higher frequency of occurrence among such societies than that is actually observed among
contemporary hunter-gatherers. I am also suggesting that socioecological factors like high
residential mobility, very low population density and high space availability (i.e. absence of
spatial circumscription) can account, albeit not exclusively, for the increases in the frequency
of body abandonment among such societies, hence impinging upon the structure of the
bioachaeological record.
It is accepted that the main mechanism by means of which the empirical referents used
to construct the bioarchaeological record become into existence is the deliberated disposal
of the dead, mainly in the form of burial. Those individuals who are not buried in some
form or die under conditions that prevent the access to the body by others (e.g., accidental

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 The Archaeological Analysis of Death-related Behaviors
from an Evolutionary Perspective

death followed by corpse dismembering, destruction or disappearing), generally contribute

very few to the formation of the record, due to the low probabilities of preservation of
body tissues under most natural conditions. It is clear that there are many death-related
behaviors other than body abandonment that potentially could not have archaeological
visibility, like the disposal of bodies on trees, platforms or any other kind of structure.
However, among contemporary hunter-gatherers these alternative forms of body disposal
usually are a primary step in burial programs (sensu O´Shea 1984) that include some form
of secondary disposal. Since secondary burial is rarely observed among small-scale societies
with low internal differentiation, it is improbable that the scarcity of burials that characterize
the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene transition in the New World could be explained by the
existence of such practices.
Besides body abandonment, the combination of low population density, high residential
mobility, large annual ranges and low redundancy in the occupation of places does also
promotes the formation of a sparse, low dense, inconspicuous bioarchaeological record.
The degree to which such a combination of features is representative of the entire range of
the paleoindian organizational patterns, does remains unclear. While there is strong evidence
supporting the assumption that this could be the case in certain open environments, like
the plains of North and South America (e.g., Amick 1996; Flegenheimer et al. 2000;
MacDonald 1998), evidence coming from diverse forest environments of South America
(e.g., humid tropical and cold temperate forests; Dillehay 1997b; Roosevelt et al. 1996), seems
to not entirely fit that model. However, the existence of a very low, albeit differentially
distributed, continental population density during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene
transition could create the conditions that promoted the spontaneous organization of
effective social systems based on large-scale land use strategies wherever the regional
environmental conditions allowed it. This might explain the persistence over several
millennia, of the same basic pattern of formation of the bioarchaeological record at a
continental scale.
Only when the process of population expansion led to the occupation of most of the
desirable space available on both subcontinents, increasing the spatial circumscription of
human groups, the effects of higher levels of population density (e.g., increases in population
pressure, the crossing of some scalar threshold, etc.) might became manifest at some
particular regions. In such cases, certain processes involving some economic intensification
and social reorganization probably occurred, requiring the attainment of new levels of
cooperation and integration within social groups. The bioarchaeological record shows that
after 8500 BP there is an increasing number of sites with high quantity of burials, some of
them possibly representing formal disposal areas, in which the treatment of the bodies

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 Gustavo Barrientos

usually is highly elaborated (e.g., Cinchorro mummies; Rivera 1995). This evidence can be
interpreted as the result of an increasing ritualization of mortuary practices and the arising
of ancestor cults, an apparently good correlate of scalar stress among hunter-gatherers.
As a resume, I can say that there are strong reasons to believe that the scarce and sparse
nature of the bioarchaeological record of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene age in the
New World is the most expectable outcome of the operation of highly mobile, low dense,
spatially unconstrained, and expanding human populations (Anderson and Faught 1998;
Anderson and Gillam 2000; Surovell 2000). Such a paucity of human burials would be at
least partially explained by the existence of some death-related behaviors allowed - but not
necessarily promoted- by those organizational properties. In this sense, the abandonment
of corpses could have had a role much more important in the structuration of the record
not only of early populations, but also of other post-Pleistocene American hunter-gatherers
(e.g., early/middle Holocene Patagonian foragers), than that is commonly accepted from a
rather biased, non theoretically informed nor empirically supported perspective.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful to the editors, José Luis Lanata and Gustavo Martínez, and to Luis
Alberto Borrero and Juan Bautista Belardi, for their kindness in reading and commenting
on an early draft of this paper. I am also deeply indebted to María Amelia Barreiro for her
valuable editorial assistance.

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NOTES
1.- It is worth noting that in some cases the bodies, mainly those of infants, can be
transported during a short period of time after the death, being invariantly abandoned
afterwards (see Fossey 1985: 189; Goodall 1986: 186-187; Strum 1987: 63-64).

253