Culturally modified skeletal remains from the site of Huamelulpan, Oaxaca, Mexico

✍ Scribed by Alexander F. Christensen; Marcus Winter

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 258 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1047-482X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1212(199709/10)7:5<467::aid-oa390>3.0.co;2-1

✦ Synopsis

A series of crania from the site of Huamelulpan, Oaxaca, Mexico (400 BC to AD 800), were examined. Four showed notable cultural modi®cations. One exhibited a healed trephination, while the other three were perforated through the frontal. The cultural context and signi®cance of these modi®cations is discussed, especially in relationship to the site of Monte Alba  n, where trephination was more common than anywhere else in Mesoamerica. The post-mortem cranial perforations appear to be connected with the practice of ancestor veneration.