Publications by authors named "Kazuhiro Uzawa"

Little is known about the precise date of the emergence of decapitation in a ritual context and the presence of systematic postmortem modification patterns in the ancient Central Andes. The ceremonial complex at Pacopampa in the northern Peruvian highlands provides early osteological evidence of decapitation in six individuals dating to the latter half of the Late-Final Formative Periods (500-50 BC) and to the Early Cajamarca Period (AD 200-450). Based on osteological evidence, and when taken together with archaeological settings and settlement patterns, researchers can be certain that those whose heads were disembodied were not likely to have been involved in organized battles. In addition, the similarities in the cut-mark distribution, direction, and cross-sectional morphology of each individual's remains, as well as the characteristics of selected individuals, imply that the decapitated individuals were carefully prepared using a standardized method and that those who modified the heads may have been professional decapitators. This study offers indisputable bioarchaeological evidence of ritualistic offerings of human skulls and systematic postmortem modification patterns, which is consistent with a contemporaneous iconographic motif of decapitation and extends the chronology of this practice back to the Formative Period in the northern Peruvian highlands.

Objectives: Pacopampa, a ceremonial complex in Peru's northern highlands, reveals early evidence of trauma in the Middle to Late Formative Period coinciding with the emergence of social stratification in the area. We examine the prevalence of trauma in human remains found at the site and present evidence of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of individuals who lived during the early stages of Andean civilization.

Materials And Methods: The materials are the remains of 104 individuals (38 non-adult and 66 adult) from the Middle to Late Formative Periods. We explored trauma macroscopically and recorded patterns based on skeletons' locations, age at death, sex, social class, and chronology.

Results: We detected trauma in remains over the Middle to Late Formative Periods. While the prevalence of trauma was minimal in the Middle Formative Period, skeletons from the subsequent era exhibit more severe disturbances. However, all the skeletons show signs of healing and affected individuals experienced a low degree of trauma.

Discussion: Given the archaeological context (the remains were recovered from sites of ceremonial practices), as well as the equal distribution of trauma among both sexes and a lack of defensive architecture, it is plausible that rituals, rather than organized warfare or raids, caused most of the exhibited trauma. Pacopampa was home to a complex society founded on ritual activity in a ceremonial center: this is indicated by the presence of ritual violence in a society that built impressively large, ceremonial architecture and developed social stratification without any political control of surplus agricultural goods.

Cribra orbitalia is characterized by an aggregation of small apertures in the orbital roof in response to marrow hypertrophy. This pathological change is indicative of biological stress during youth. We examined the prevalence of this lesion in Pacopampa, a ceremonial center of the formative period, located in the northern highlands of Peru. Using this evaluation of cribra orbitalia, we reconstructed aspects of the population's health and nutritional status during the formation of Andean civilization. We examined 41 orbits of 27 adult individuals (13 males, 14 females) and recorded the macroscopic presence or absence of cribra orbitalia. The presence or absence of cribra orbitalia was the same bilaterally for all 14 individuals having both orbits preserved. The pathology was present in two of the 13 males (15.4%), one of the 14 (7.1%) females, and three of 27 individuals (11.1%) for both sexes combined. There was no difference in the frequency between sexes. The prevalence of cribra orbitalia was found to be lower in Pacopampa than in the comparative data of coastal populations. It is reasonable to assume that the increase in social complexity in Pacopampa was probably unrelated to the decline in overall health of the people.

The Pacopampa site is located in the northern highlands of Peru and is an archaeological site belonging to the Formative Period (2500-1 BC). The excavation of the Pacopampa site yielded unusual human skeletons from the main platform of a ceremonial center of the site during the 2009 field season. The skeletal remains were associated with a pair of gold earplugs, a pair of gold earrings, and shell objects. This specimen is possibly a female aged 20-39 years. Detailed examination of the neurocranium revealed the presence of artificial cranial deformation with decreased cranial length, increased cranial breadth, and lateral bulging of the parietal bones. The estimated stature of this individual was 162 cm, which is about 15 cm higher than that of contemporary females of Pacopampa and about 20-25 cm higher than that of other Formative Period sites in northern Peru. The peculiarity of this individual, detected not only in the cultural artifacts but also in the physical features, is possible evidence for social stratification in the Formative Period.

The Yuigahama Chusei Shudan Bochi site (AD: twelfth to thirteenth centuries), located along the seashore of the southern end of Kamakura City in Japan, and has yielded a mass grave containing hundreds of human crania. The purpose of this study is to document cut marks on crania made by an edged weapon, paying specific attention to individuals who may exhibit scratch marks, and to understand the variability of weapon-related traumas in the medieval period in Japan. The observation leads to tentative findings regarding the identification and interpretation of weapon-related traumas of human skeletal remains. From macroscopic observation, the marks display the sharpness of cut surfaces which are characteristic of unhealed cut marks. Scanning electron microscopic observation of the marks also shows that they are V-shaped in cross-section, a morphological feature that is characteristic of cut marks. This study first demonstrates that the scratches on the crania have morphological features consistent with human-induced cut marks, and that the macroscopic and microscopic approaches provide important information for identifying anthropogenic cut marks on the human skeletal remains from an archaeological site in Japan.