| Cerro Mangote (7000-5000 BP uncalibrated) is a Preceramic site on the central Pacific coast of Panama. The site is unusual since it is the only Preceramic site to date in Central America with over 100 burials excavated from the site. By re-analyzing the sample of human skeletons from Cerro Mangote, this dissertation establishes a more reliable biological profile, details mortuary treatments, and combines musculoskeletal stress markers and activity patterns with previously published stable isotopes (C and N) (Norr 1991), to explore population structure and site use based on food procurement patterning and mortuary treatments. Based on local and regional archaeological evidence, researchers how proposed that the transient inhabitants of Cerro Mangote had a mixed diet, including local amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, wild and cultivated plants, estuarine fish, and shellfish (Piperno and Pearsall 1998, Ranere and Cooke 2003). While archaeological diet is inferred, it is unclear what segments of a population used the site and the terms of site use. This dissertation aims to flesh out the cultural history of site use by examining direct and indirect dietary data, mortuary structure, demography and skeletal markers of activity. These lines of data demonstrate that the diet relied heavily on local marine and terrestrial vertebrates. The mortuary treatments indicate a slight preference for flexed, supine primary burials, with the heads facing north. Secondary burials appear to be created as encountered, since they are found in association with primary burials. This research highlights the experimentation in both resource use and mortuary pattern by the living population, illustrating variation not typically assumed in a Preceramic site. |
