Archaeological dig finds early evidence of dental work

The interdisciplinary team from the Mexican Environmental and Cultural Research Institute, Inc., (MEXECRI) found “the bald man” right where the village elder told them to look.

He was buried high upon the shoulder of one of the ancient volcanoes that pock the landscape of this region.

And he was far and away the most significant discovery yet made in the central Mexican state of Michoacán by UConn’s Tricia Gabany-Guerrero and her colleagues from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Central Washington University and the University of Guanajuato in Mexico.

The finding was an Archaic human burial site dated between 2570 B.C. and 2332 B.C., the oldest burial site discovered in that region.

The remains are of a healthy adult male between 28 and 32 years old, who was approximately 5 feet, 1 inch tall, with the earliest known example of dental modification in the Americas.

A research team led by Prof. Tricia Gabany-Guerrero discovered the earliest known dental modification in the Americas.

Photo by Tricia Gebany-Guerrero

An assistant professor in residence and associate director at UConn’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Gabany-Guerrero is a Meso-american anthropologist whose work focuses on discovering the origins and cultural history of the Purepecha people of Michoacán, Mexico.

The forested upland of Michoacán is part of a region where, she notes, “we have seen the development of some of the most important civilizations that have influenced the Americas.

Both graduate and undergraduate students at UConn have the opportunity to conduct archaeological and enthnohistorical research as part of the field study, which is funded by the National Geographic Society.

UConn graduate students are currently conducting research on ceramic pipes and obsidian points and blades at other settlement areas.

Gabany-Guerrero also integrates her research into classroom teaching about what she has learned near Parangaricutiro, the village in Michoacán where MEXECRI’s work is focused.

Gabany-Guerrero helped found the organization, which aims to help indigenous communities develop “a sustainable future, rooted in the past.”

The MEXECRI researchers could not ask for better collaborators than the villagers of Parangaricutiro.

They are as anxious to know about their ancestors as are the researchers.

It is an irony not lost on Gabany-Guerrero and her colleagues, for in many respects these people are the past incarnate.

A research team led by Tricia Gabany-Guerrero working at a dig site in central Mexico.

They are Purépecha, Indians whose ancestors contested the Aztecs and laid claim to this land centuries before the Spanish advent.

In the shadow of Paricutin, a volcano that roared into existence in 1943, forcing the relocation of the Parangaricutiro community, the villagers today struggle to preserve ancient corn production techniques.

But though the Purépecha carry on the ancient traditions of their forebears, Gabany-Guerrero says they operate a sophisticated communal lumber operation that is the “largest in the Americas.”

Water accounts for the presence of both the area’s vast pine and oak forests and the villagers who manage them.

The area is soaked by annual seasonal torrential rains that last from July until October.

The storms are epic, says Gabany-Guerrero, and present challenges for the UConn researchers, who work every summer.

Six years ago, following the advice of a village elder, researchers began examining cliff paintings in the rugged highlands, about an hour’s drive from Parangaricutiro on primitive roads.

They found tantalizing clues suggesting that people lived there much earlier than previously believed.

But excavation along likely spots for civilization — ancient river basins — produced no evidence of habitation making it unclear where the ancients had lived.

It was an important question because the region has not always been a temperate rainforest and the surrounding lowland area where Parangaricutiro now exists would have been much dryer during the Late Holocene.

The site near the cliff paintings, however, was suitable for a hunting and gathering society.

Runoff from ancient natural mineral springs pooled in the egg-shaped bowl of an ancient caldera creating an oasis for migrating waterfowl, which could have been an important source of human food.

And it was near that spot that Gabany-Guerrero’s team found the skeletal remains of the man the Purépecha have named Huitziniki, “the bald man.”

Radiocarbon dating proved he was interred approximately 4,500 years ago, which makes this the oldest burial site yet discovered in the area and all the more remarkable considering the damp climate.

“He was buried beneath 12 feet of volcanic ash and a boulder,” says Gabany-Guerrero.

“That’s what helped to preserve his skeleton.”

What really distinguishes Huitziniki is his teeth according to paleonathropologist James Chatters.

The upper front ones were intentionally filed down so that he could wear some sort of prosthesis, most likely made of animal teeth and used for ceremonial purposes.

That means he was probably a tribal leader, possibly a shaman, and his teeth are far and away the earliest example of dental modification ever discovered in the Americas.

Gabany-Guerrero, who has worked in Mexico for nearly 20 years, has a special interest in regional agriculture, the ways it has changed over long periods of time and how those changes have impacted indigenous human populations.

Part of the research team’s work involves painstakingly assessing the record of pollens, preserved deep within the soil of the region.

“Examination of micronutrients in his teeth has also shown that he had access to succulent vegetables and, possibly, corn,” says Gabany-Guerrero.

Because there is no previous evidence of corn or squash in the region, she says, Huitziniki may be an important link in the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.

In the three years since the MEXECRI team found him, the team has unearthed a nearby Classic Period settlement some 1,300 years old, including 14 ceremonial pyramids.

Gabany-Guerrero says the team has, quite literally, just scratched the surface of the site’s contents and their meaning.

Huitziniki’s remains are destined for a community museum in the custody of the Purépecha, who have adopted him as an important symbol of their ancestral past and its value — both economically and educationally — for their future.

Gabany-Guerrero is looking for graduate and undergraduate students who are interested in participating in the research project for 2007.

For more information, go to the Center for Latin American & Carribbean Studies website.

— Jim H. Smith