The body was disposed whole-body in the east-west profile between grids A and B, at a depth of 1.30 m. Similarly, age was estimated from cranial and postcranial skeletal metamorphosis and dental wear . Height was estimated from skeletal measurements (heel to vertex) in situ. Individual 3+ is a juvenile or young adult, 17 to 25 years old, female, and measures approximately 149 cm. There are traces of red dye on the skull and forearms. Among the items found that accompanied or contained the body are a ceramic vessel, 11 freshwater mollusk shells, and over 500 fragments of plant material.
Plant procedure.
At depths between step 1.31 and you can 0.98 yards, exclusively restricted to locations below (23%) and forming an edge horizontal on muscles (77%), no less than 578 fragments of bush number (wood) was recorded, taking a beneficial macroscopic type of black and you will brown cubes. New sizes of your own fragments was in fact classified towards Quick, between step one and you will 3 cm (341 fragments), Medium-Quick 3 to 6 cm (89 fragments), Average, 6 so you can ten cm (61 fragments), Highest, ten so you’re able to twelve cm (34 fragments), and extremely High, higher than twelve cm (53 fragments), the second focused during the distal sectors.
A sample regarding 20 fragments regarding wood of different sizes and away from additional sectors was picked and you will sent to have personality from the Laboratorio de- Dendroescrerologia y Catedra de- Anatomia Vegetal del AUSMA, Universidad Nacional de Comahue, Argentina. This new wood is observed under an optical teen hookup apps ad microscope that have event light on the around three diagnostic sections: get across (Fig 4A; S2 Fig), radial longitudinal or axial (Fig 4B; S3 Fig) and you may tangential longitudinal or axial (Fig 4C; S4 Fig). It was finished regarding findings that timber came from a Gymnosperm (demonstrably tracheid timber). Regarding the radial section, bullet or egg-shaped tracheids that have uniseriate pits was in fact noticed (Fig 4B), indicating that timber is away from Austrocedrus chilensis “Chilean cedar”. One of many services of your own try, it was indexed that 31% of Higher and extremely Higher specimens, i.elizabeth. those people adequate to possess low modifications is seen, establish temperature alteration exclusively towards the face depending into the looks, otherwise interior deal with when it comes to a bin. Despite the fragmentation of your try, the architectural properties of the fragments advise that he or she is drawn from one forest, and you may projection of your own bases of one’s gains groups implies a beneficial single trunk from diameter larger than 0.70 meters (Fig 4A).
Malacological points.
Your body is actually followed by valves of your own freshwater mollusc Diplodon chilensis, many of which try partial-done and rest lower than along with head exposure to bones particularly just like the humerus and you may femur. The fresh new shells rescue an amount of integrity and you can fragments from periostracum exist, where it is inferred that they was indeed put-on the foot of the wooden container through to the human body is actually laid into the it. About three partial-complete specimens introduce purple mineral colorants to their outside skin. So it species of mollusc can be found only three hundred m away towards the the newest shores out-of Lacar Lake. Regulators of the species try submitted during the funerary and you can residential contexts during the websites on each other mountains of one’s Andes [18, 19].
Pottery.
Beside the body, to the left of the cranium and on the same vertical level, a pottery vessel was deposited ; it is a bottle or jug with a spherical body and a formatted or flat base, cylindrical neck, and mouth with signs of a pouring-lip. It has a handle consisting of a vertical strip fixed between the body and the rim, opposite the lip. It was fired with oxidation; the clay is compact and schist-like, red in colour with quartz inclusions (Fig 5). It has a white glaze and geometric patterns in red paint on several distinct panels on the body and neck. The motifs are: parallel lines dividing the body and neck into horizontal segments; reticulated figures round the neck; and vertical parallel bands distributed round the body where triangular figures composed of lines alternate with clepsydras or triangles joined by their vertex. This piece forms a typological or singular group (bottle or jug with narrow mouth and pouring-lip), previously unknown at least among the morphological and technical variants of the El Vergel pottery complex ; it is part of the (pre-Hispanic) Red on White Bichrome tradition, of the Late Pottery period in the regional ceramics sequence . Given the chronology of this piece, it is one of the earliest records of use as a funerary item. Like other features, its tilted position and height, close to the face of Individual 3+, suggest that the wooden container was concave in shape and of restricted size, and that the base in this part was elevated.