Abstract

We presents the potential cases of Trepanomatosis found in a study of the prehispanic populations of the Atacama desert in northern Chile. Chronologically, the studied populations span from 5,000 to 800 a.P. and are characterized by an economy based on fishing, hunting-gathering, in coastal archaic populations, and based on agriculture for later populations in the Azapa valley. In total, we analyzed a sample of 636 individuals, out of which 8% (51/636) showed some skeletal evidence attributable to a chronic infection, with a pattern identified as Yaws type non-venereous Trepanomatosis. The incidence was significantly higher in the coastal fishing, hunting-gathering populations reaching 18.5% (33/178), in comparison to the valley agriculturalist populations where it reached 3.9% (18/458). This difference could be attributable to the different ways of life of the studied populations. Our results support the hypothesis of an American origin for this disease. © 2007 Universidad de Tarapacá Facultad de Ciencias Sociales Administrativas y Económicas Departamento de Antropología.