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One critical subject in any bioanthropological study of a population is the sex determination of the individuals. It becomes even more crucial when analyzing daily and seasonal mobilities in a specific society, especially those related to gender roles. In cases where the archaeological remains are comingled, discriminant functions become a fundamental tool to achieve this goal. Nevertheless, they should have been made with populations as close as possible to those being studied. Punta Azul's burial site is one of the island's most important funerary sites. It has remains of more than a hundred individuals. However, as in most of the burial sites in the archipelago, the remains were highly commingled.
Considering previous anthropological studies, we chose the astragalus and calcaneus establish discriminant functions. Prior results suggested that the distinction of males and females in these specific bones could give us insights into this population's activities. The appearance of certain traits led us to think there could be genetic, gender, or movement patterns that were conditioning its presence. Indigenous populations adapted their behavior to take advantage of the limited available resources with seasonal mobility, like going to higher lands in the summer and everyday mobility related to pastoral activities. These movements were probably different for men and women. Therefore, the analysis of activity patterns in these bones by sex is fundamental to address these questions.
As a preliminary approach, we analyzed 31 samples and established the genetic sex of 25. Although it is still a small number, we could design a discriminant function for the calcaneus and the astragalus with an overall accuracy of 88% and 100%, respectively. These promising results lead us to analyze a higher number of bones, using aDNA, to increase our functions' reliability and assure the gender assignation to see our bioanthropological results' social implications.

EAA2021: Abstract

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