ORIGINAL PAPER Does the shape make a difference? Evaluating the ethnic role of cranial modification in the Pampa-Patagonia region (Argentina) during the late Holocene Serna Alejandro1 & Prates Luciano1 & Flensborg Gustavo2 & Martínez Gustavo2 & Favier Dubois Cristian2 & Perez Sergio Ivan3 Received: 22 March 2018 /Accepted: 23 August 2018 /Published online: 3 September 2018 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract The Pampa-Patagonia region in Argentina has been characterized as an ethnically complex territory during the late Holocene. This region presents a high frequency of human burials and, although several papers have focused on the study of cranial vault modification, none of them have discussed systematically the ethnic role of this practice. In this study, we assess the role of cranial modification as a potential expression of ethnic identity among hunter-gatherer groups from northeastern Patagonia and southeastern Pampas during the late Holocene. In order to define morphological groups and to recognize spatio-temporal patterns, we applied 2D landmark-based morpho- metric methods and multivariate statistical techniques on 216 adult male and female crania, which were grouped into three geographic units. The results of this paper do not support the idea of cranial modification as an ethnic marker within the region, as the different modifications follow a temporal sequence and are present in the entire study area. Also, our results show that the groups of cranial modification are different from each other, and they show variability among the geographic units. The reasons behind the change between cranial modification groups remain unclear, but it coincides approximately with some technological and symbolic changes in the material record. Variability within groups is understood as the result of a non-standardized practice and the existence of local ways of doing among the hunter-gatherer of the study region. As we see in shared art motives and decorative patterns, cranial modification would have represented another correlate of amacro-regional visual communication system thatworked during the lateHolocene in Pampa-Patagonia. Keywords Cranial vault modification . Pampa-Patagonia region . Geometric morphometric . Hunter-gatherers . Ethnic differentiation Introduction Cranial vault modification is the product of compressive forces that guide the growth and shape the neurocranium permanently during the early childhood (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994; Tiesler 2014). It is well documented that after birth, the head of the newborn is shaped carefully up to 5 years in some cases, by a member of its family or a caretaker (e.g., Blackwood and Danby * Serna Alejandro aserna@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar Prates Luciano lprates@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar Flensborg Gustavo gflensbo@soc.unicen.edu.ar Martínez Gustavo gmartine@soc.unicen.edu.ar Favier Dubois Cristian cfavier3@gmail.com Perez Sergio Ivan ivanperezmorea@gmail.com 1 CONICET - División Arqueología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Anexo Museo, Av. 122 y 60 (1900), La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2 Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano (INCUAPA-CONICET), Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (UNICEN), Olavarría, Argentina 3 CONICET- DivisiónAntropología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Anexo Museo, Av. 122 y 60 (1900), La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2019) 11:2597–2610 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-018-0687-6 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s12520-018-0687-6&domain=pdf mailto:aserna@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar 1955; Hatt 1915). It is also known that the modification of the head is a worldwide practice, that has been implemented by diverse human groups over time and space (Dingwall 1931; Tiesler 2014), especially in South America, where it has been deeply studied (Blom 1999, 2005; Bórmida 1953–1954; Dembo and Imbelloni 1938; Hrdlicka 1912; Knudson and Torres-Rouff 2009; Kuzminsky et al. 2016; Perez 2007; Torres-Rouff 2002, 2003; Weiss 1961; among others). One of the most frequent archeological questions related with cranial modification has been about their causes. Some scholars have explained it as a sub-product of cultural prac- tices the aim of which was not to alter the shape of the head (e.g., fixing children to a cradle with bandages or straps for transportation, Dembo and Imbelloni 1938). In other cases, cranial modification has been interpreted as a consequence of intentional actions oriented towards shaping the cranium (e.g., labor specialization, Lozada and Buikstra 2005; resem- blance with the gods, García and Tiesler 2011). Whether un- intentional or intentional, cranial vault modification results from the interaction among the newborns and the caretakers in a social context, and therefore bears social meaning (Tiesler 2014; Torres-Rouff and Knudson 2017). Different social mo- tivations or roles have been proposed in a wide variety of archeological and ethnographical contexts, such as lineage differentiation (Weiss 1961), social status distinction (Dingwall 1931), cosmological purposes (Tiesler 2014), cor- poral esthetics (Lorentz 2002), health benefits (Hatt 1915), intimidation (Allison et al. 1981), and ethnic demarcation (Blom 2005; Torres-Rouff and Yablonsky 2005; Yépez 2009). In this context, cranial modification is able to comprise relevant information about ethnic affiliation because the hu- man body is both biologically and socially dynamic, and some structural features and social conventions can leave visible marks on it (Knudson and Stojanowski 2008; Tiesler 2014). Ethnicity, as a collective social identity, is usually built in relation with other groups and defined by its limits (Barth 1969; Jones 1997). One approach to study these limits is through the study of biological and social interactions among groups that can be assessed by means of the bioarchaeological record (Blom 2005; Serna 2018; Sutter 2005; Torres-Rouff and Knudson 2017). The transition between Pampa and Patagonia regions, two prominent ecological and cultural areas of Southern South America, has been historically viewed as an area of tension and interaction between adjacent social systems. From the XVIII century on, many travelers and scholars observed and stated that the Negro river valley functioned as an ethnic boundary/buffer between Pampean and Patagonian people (BPampas^ or BTehuelches Septentrionales Boreales^ -to the North-, and BTehuelches Septentrionales Australes^ or BGününa küna^ -to the South-) (Casamiquela 1965; Vignati 1967). Although the northern Patagonian coast was virtually uninhabited by hunter-gatherers from the XVI century, coastal archeological sites were usually thought to have been gener- ated by different people (specialized marine hunter-gatherers), to inland sites (Bórmida 1953–1954; Sanguinetti de Bórmida 1981). Therefore, the whole area has been characterized as an ethnically complex territory, with high biological and cultural variability during the late Holocene (Bórmida 1953–1954; Bórmida and Casamiquela 1958–1959; Borrero 2001; Casamiquela 1985; Cocilovo and Neves 1988–1989; Fortich Baca 1976; Gradin 1982; Orquera 1984–1985; Prates 2008; Pucciarelli et al. 2006; among others). The bioanthropological evidence suggests a context of population convergence and recurrent gene flow (Barrientos and Perez 2002; Bernal 2008; Del Papa 2013; Perez 2006; Pucciarelli et al. 2006), and inferences based on the archeological record have point- ed, Bcultural convergence^ (Outes 1926), Bsoft borders,^ and large social networks (Berón 2007, 2016; Martínez 2008– 2009; Martínez et al. 2016). Considering these previous evidences and interpretations, the question that arises in this paper is whether the cranial vault modification expressed ethnic differences in the three main spatial units of the Pampa-Patagonia ecotone during the late Holocene: Inland Southeastern Pampas, Negro River Valley, and the neighboring coast area of the former two (Northpatagonic Litoral) (Fig. 1). For this purpose, we analyze the morphological variation using 2D landmark-based mor- phometric methods and multivariate statistical techniques, to define morphological and spatio-temporal patterns. Having a clear understanding of morphological variation and its geo- graphic and temporal patterns will allow us to get closer to the social meaning of the cranial modification among hunter- gatherers. Although several papers have focused on the study of cranial modification in this area, its social implications have not been systematically discussed (e.g., Bernal et al. 2008; Berón and Baffi 2003; Berón and Luna 2009; Bórmida 1953–1954; Cocilovo and Guichón 1994; Dembo and Imbelloni 1938; Mendonça et al. 1988–1989; Perez et al. 2009a; Serna et al. 2013; Wiggenhauser 2016). Materials and methods Archaeological background and analyzed sample The bioarchaeological record of the study area is characterized by a high density of sites where the economic activities and the disposal of the dead coexisted. The mortuary practices included primary and secondary burials, often without funer- ary goods (Flensborg et al. 2018;Madrid and Barrientos 2000; Mariano 2011; Martínez 2010; Prates and Di Prado 2013). Molecular and radiocarbon data indicated that the population growth would have reached its maximum during the late Holocene (Perez et al. 2016). Also, the archeological record shows evidence for the implementation of new technologies 2598 Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 (Borges Vaz et al. 2016; Crivelli Montero 2010), the intensi- fication of long-distance networks of trade (Berón 2007; Gómez Otero 2006), and the existence of shared motives and decorations in different items and surfaces (Acevedo 2015; Carden and Martínez 2014; Curtoni 2006; Di Prado 2015; Gradin 1973, 2001; Menghin 1957; among others). The analyzed sample consists of 216 adult crania (male and female) from late Holocene archeological sites located in the northeastern Patagonia and southeastern Pampas (Table 1). The sample was analyzed considering three geographical units: Negro River Valley (NRV), Northpatagonic Litoral (NL), and Inland Southeastern Pampas (ISEP) (Fig. 1). The NRV sample (n = 131) consists of crania from the Laguna del Juncal archeological locality, in the lower valley of Negro River (Moreno collection, Museo de La Plata), and another site from the middle valley of the same river (Table 1). Laguna del Juncal is one of the most prominent mortuary spaces in northern Patagonia, with more than 25 multiple burial sites in an area of ca. 150 km2 (Moreno 1874; Fisher and Nacuzzi 1992; Bernal et al. 2008). The NL sample (n = 61) includes crania from San Blas, Isla Gama, and San Antonio Este/Oeste archeological localities (Museo de La Plata and Museo Etnográfico Juan B. Ambrosetti), as well as from the north coast of the San Matías’ Gulf (Table 1). These archeological localities comprise several sites excavated during the last part of the nineteenth century and the first part of twentieth century (see details in Perez 2006). The ISEP sample (n = 24) com- prises crania from different sites of the lower valley of the Colorado River and southeastern Pampas (Table 1). Data acquisition Previous studies have demonstrated that there is no associa- tion between sex and cranial modification among the hunter- gatherer groups in the study area and neighbor regions (Perez 2006, 2007; Perez et al. 2009b). Also, considering that the sample in this study is sex-balanced (Table 1), we chose to pool male/female together in order to keep the highest sample size. Geometric morphometric analyses were performed on 2D images obtained from crania positioned according to the Frankfurt plane, in the lateral norm and at a distance of 30 cm from the lens of an Olympus SP 350 digital camera. Although the study of cranial modification with three- dimensional data is becoming widely used due to its precision (e.g., Kuzminsky et al. 2016; Mayall and Pilbrow 2018; Menéndez and Lotto 2016; Wiggenhauser 2016), 2D data is still effective to have a first insight and describe broad patterns of variation (e.g., Manríquez et al. 2006; Mayall et al. 2017; Perez 2007; Salazar et al. 2014; Serna and Prates 2012). Cartesian coordinates (4 landmarks and 31 semilandmarks) on each image were digitalized along the contour of the vaults using the tps series software (Rohlf 2015). The landmarks used in this study are nasion (n), bregma (b), lambda (l), and postmastoid (pm) (Fig. 2). In order to assess the reliability of the landmark record, we analyzed the intraobserver error on a random sample (n = 40), conducting an intraclass correlation coefficient (Shrout and Fleiss 1979; Zar 1999). This test shows an excellent consistency (ICC > 0.93) between digiti- zation series. Morphometric and statistical approach In this paper, we focus on the shape of cranial modification to build morphological categories, rather than using pre- established types. We do not use the classical typological cat- egories proposed by Dembo and Imbelloni (1938)—based on assumed modification devices—not only because the defini- tions of some types are problematic (Bórmida 1953–1954: 46–47; Cocilovo and Guichón 1994: 25; Dembo and Imbelloni 1938: 271–272; Mendonça et al. 1988–1989: 58), but also because this kind of classification disregards the con- tinuous nature of the morphological variation. Besides, the study of cranial modification based on few categories, instead Fig. 1 Study region and location of the sites analyzed in this work Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 2599 of using several typological categories, has been proven to be a suitable research strategy (Boston 2012). Instead of using typological visual methods (i.e., gross vi- sual assessment), we follow an alternative approach that high- lights the continuous nature of the morphological variation (Zelditch et al. 2012), through landmark-based morphometric techniques (Kuzminsky et al. 2016; Manríquez et al. 2006; Mayall et al. 2017; Mayall and Pilbrow 2018; Perez 2006, 2007; Perez et al. 2009a, b). A Generalized Procrustes Analysis was performed to remove any information that may be added by translation, scaling, and rotation factors (Rohlf and Slice 1990). The exclusion of these factors means that the only variable remaining is shape, and it allows us to pool both sexes together for analysis (e.g., Kuzminsky et al. 2016; Mayall et al. 2017). Unlike landmarks, semilandmarks—on their own—do not behave like homolog points between struc- tures, but the homology is established between contours de- fined by anatomical points (Bookstein 2002). Themorpholog- ical information is contained in the variation perpendicular to the described contour. To eliminate the tangent variation, and given the large morphometric differences between structures, the semilandmarks were slid along the contours by the bend- ing energy criterion (Bookstein 1997; Perez et al. 2006). The resulting coordinates after these procedures are the Procrustes shape variables or Procrustes coordinates. These procedures were performed with the tps series software (Rohlf 2015). In order to evaluate and compare the morphological con- figurations in a multivariate space of reduced dimensions, a Principal Component Analysis or Relative Warps Analysis (RWA) was performed on the Procrustes coordinates (Bookstein 1991; Mitteroecker and Gunz 2009). The RWA is a rigid rotation of the Procrustes shape variables that max- imizes the variation among individuals using a spectral de- composition of a covariance matrix (Mitteroecker and Bookstein 2011). In this way, RWA generates orthogonal axes that describe patterns of maximum morphological var- iation (Bookstein 1989; Rohlf 1993). This analysis redistrib- utes the total variance of the sample into the orthogonal axes that re-describe the patterns of variation among the data. These axes or RelativeWarps (RWs) are calculated such that the variance on the first axis (RW1) accounts for the maxi- mum variance in the data (Strauss 2010). An advantage of Table 1 Analyzed sample Region Sample Site M/F/Indet n Years BPa Reference Northeastern Patagonia NRV Laguna del Juncal (LJ) 65/54/2 121 3300–400 Bernal et al. 2008; Gordón 2011; MLP Catalog (n.d.) Loma de los Muertos (LM) 1/2/− 3 3000–500 Prates et al. 2010a, b Negro Muerto 2 (NM2) −/3/− 3 2000–1300 Serna and Prates 2012; Prates and Di Prado 2013 La Victoria 5 (LV5) −/2/− 2 1200–900 Prates et al. 2011 Chimpay (Ch) 1/1/− 2 100 Prates et al. 2016; Serna et al. 2017 NL San Blas e Isla Gama (SBIG) 11/15/8 34 1500–400 Perez 2006; Bernal et al. 2008; MLP Catalog Bahía Final 6 (BF6) −/1/− 1 3400–800 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 Bajo de la Quinta (BQ) −/1/− 1 3000–450 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 Buque Sur (BS) 2/2/− 4 2300–2100 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 Faro San Matías (FSM) −/1/− 1 2900–1400 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 CMCriadero (CMC) 1/−/− 1 1500–700 Favier Dubois et al., 2009 SAOBA 2/−/− 2 2300 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 SAOPC 1/1/− 2 3100 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 San Antonio (SA) 10/5/− 15 2500–400 Perez 2006; ME Catalog Southeastern Pampas ISEP La Petrona (LP) −/2/− 2 770–250 Martínez 2004 Paso Alsina 1 (PA1) 5/4/− 9 570–440 Martínez et al. 2007 Tres Reyes I (TR1) 4/2/− 6 2500–1800 Madrid and Barrientos 2000 Estancia Santa Clara (ESC) −/1/− 1 2500–1500 Madrid and Barrientos 2000; Perez 2006 Laguna Los Chilenos 1 (LCH1) 2/1/− 3 470 Barrientos 1997 Saavedra (SAA) 2/1/− 3 1500–400 Perez 2006 Total 107/99/10 216 a Chronology based on radiocarbon dating and contextual association 2600 Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 this analysis is that the morphological spectrum can be expressed visually as a deformation diagram of each case with respect to a mean form or consensus. The thin plate spline function was used to visualize the morphological changes along the RWs through a grid of deformation (Bookstein 1991; Rohlf 1993). These procedures were per- formed with the tps series software (Rohlf 2015). Although quantitative methods are powerful tools to assess the morphological variation of cranial modification, they still required some criteria to establish cut-off points (Perez 2007; Serna et al. 2013). In this paper, we used the Minimum Spanning Tree (MTS), a procedure that is commonly applied in morphological and genetic studies (Excoffier and Smouse 1994; Curnoe et al. 2015; Rocatti et al. 2017). This algorithm links the objects according to a matrix of distances, and is useful to apply in reduced space ordinations, such as the morphospace built by the RWs (Rohlf 1990). The objects are connected with segments in such a way that all are linked without loops, and these segments represent the shortest pos- sible way to connect all the objects in a coordinate system (Gower and Ross 1969). For each sample (i.e., NRV, NL, and ISEP), a MST was performed with the Euclidean dis- tances of the space built by the first two RWs, to establish cutting-off points to separate among morphologies with pre- cision (unmodified and modified ones). The results were rep- resented with different colors into the two-dimensional space of the RWA. This analysis was performed with R 3.1.0 - package ape- (R Development Core Team 2016). To explore the morphological variation among the modi- fied crania of each sample, we removed the unmodified crania, and performed a Canonical Variable Analysis (CVA) based on the first two RWs of all the modified crania pooled together. The aim of this analysis is to visualize the differences between and within morphological groups in a space of re- duced dimensions. Similar to the RWA, CVA generates a new set of variables (i.e., canonical variables (CVs)) formed by linear combinations of the original variables, but in this case it seeks to maximize the inter-group distance relative to intra- group (Manly 1994; McCune and Grace 2002). From this analysis is possible to obtain the centroids (i.e., the mean values of the CVs) for each sample in each morphological group, and to use them to compare with other variables. The statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 20. In order to test the association between the morphological ordination produced by the CVA and its temporal-spatial var- iation, we performed a Procrustes Analysis (Gower 1971; Peres-Neto and Jackson 2001; Perez 2007). The procrustean approach has been demonstrated to be able to detect matrix associations in different contexts, and it has been proposed as a powerful alternative to the Mantel test to compare sets of multivariate data (Peres-Neto and Jackson 2001). Instead of transforming the raw data into a distance matrix, the Procrustes Analysis operates over the raw data, and their or- dination is scaled and rotated to find an optimal superimposi- tion that maximizes their fit. So, the metric of association will be the sum of the squared residuals between configurations in their optimal superimposition, standardized to vary between 0 (no association or similarity between ordinations) and 1 (max- imum association) (Gower 1971). We used the centroids of each sample in the canonical variable space to build a matrix of morphology, we defined one geographic coordinate per sample as a unique point at the same distance from each site, and we averaged the chronological range for each sample. A permutation procedure is also available to assess the statistical significance of the Procrustean fit (Jackson 1995), but it was not applied due to the low number of cases (n = 6). The Procrustes Analysis was performed using the vegan package for R 3.1.0 (R Development Core Team 2016). Results The morphometric and multivariate analyses allowed us to summarize and cluster the gradient of morphological variation of the cranial contour for each of the samples. In the NRV sample, the first two RWs account for 63.62% of the morpho- logical variation, and the MST allowed us to establish cut-off points for three morphological groups (Fig. 3). Along the pos- itive segment of RW1 (36.96%) and in the most positive RW2 scores (26.66%), shapes exhibiting compression in the frontal and occipital regions, with different degrees of flattening, obliquity, and projection of the obelonic region, are clustered (cluster F-O). Around the origin of both axes and along the positive part of RW1 and the negative part of RW2, a wide variety of contours are clustered. Although globular shapes Fig. 2 Coordinates recorded from the vault contours (modified from Perez 2007) Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 2601 predominate, some variants show different degrees of poste- rior projection of the occipital protuberance and pressure on lambda (cluster G -unmodified-). Among the most negative values of RW1 and along RW2, morphologies with different degrees of flattening in the lambdoid-occipital area, as well as some frontal projection, can be observed (cluster L-O) (Fig. 3). In total, 56.49% (74/131) of the sample is modified, of which 54.05% (40/74) corresponds to L-O and the remain- ing 45.95% (34/74) to F-O. The sum of the first two RWs for the NL sample explains 63.07% of the morphological variation that we clustered in morphological groups (Fig. 4). In the positive segment of RW1 (40.35%) and in the most negative area of RW2 (22.72%), shapes characterized by different degrees of fronto-occipital compression and obliquity are clustered (clus- ter F-O). In the quadrant formed by the positive values of both axes, globular shapes with different degrees of elongation resulting from a posterior expansion of the occipital protuber- ance are grouped (cluster G -unmodified-). Along the negative segment of RW1 and around values close to zero of RW2, shapes characterized by different degrees of flattening in the occipital area and expansion of the frontal bone are observed (cluster L-O) (Fig. 4). In total, 60.66% (37/61) of the sample is modified, of which 70.27% (26/37) corresponds to L-O and the remaining 29.73% (11/37) to F-O. The sumof the first twoRWs for the ISEP sample explains 69.23%of themorphological variation of the cranial contour that we clustered according three morphological patterns (Fig. 5). In the negative sector of the RW1 (45.89%), shapes characterized by a fronto-occipital pressure maintaining curved aspects in both bones are grouped (cluster F-O). Near the origin and the negative sector of the RW1 and along theRW2 (23.34%), globular shapes are dispersed (clusterG - unmodified-). Towards the positive values ofRW1and along theRW2, shapeswithdifferent degrees of occipital flattening and pressure in the lambda zone, aswell as a slight projection of the frontal bone, are clustered (cluster L-O) (Fig. 5). In total, 62.5% (15/24) of the sample is modified, of which 73.33% (11/15) corresponds to L-O and the remaining el 26.67% (4/15) to F-O. Fig. 3 Relative Warps Analysis with the MST groups—in colors—and deformation grids for NRV sample. F-O fronto- occipital morphologies, L-O lambdoid-occipital morphologies, G globular morphologies (unmodified) 2602 Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 Once recognized the unmodified crania in each sample, they were removed from the posterior analysis. All the mod- ified crania with radiocarbon dates were classified in Table 2 according to their morphological group. The F-O spans within the range of ca. 3000–1600 years BP and the L- O within the range of ca. 900–300 years BP. Figure 6 shows the modified crania from each sample in the space built by CV1 (98.8%) and CV2 (1.2%). The distribution of the crania shows a gap between morphological groups. On the left side of the plot, lambdoid-occipital compressed shapes are gathered, and in the opposite side those with fronto- occipital compression. The latter show a wide distribution along the axes, while the former is more constrained. The centroids of each sample reflect this general pattern (Fig. 6). Finally, the Procrustes Analysis shows that the pattern of morphological variation is associated with time (Table 3). The values of the association are around perfect for the var- iables Chronology (m12 = 0.9903) and Chronology- geography (m12 = 0.9903), while Geography exhibited a very low association (m12 = 0.03234). Discussion The core question of this paper is whether cranial vault mod- ification was an ethnic marker in the northeastern Patagonia and southeastern Pampas during the late Holocene. If cranial modification was actually a mechanism for differentiation, we expect the morphological variation to vary—with high fre- quencies—synchronically throughout the space (e.g., Alfonso-Durruty et al. 2015; Blom 1999, 2005; Boston 2012; Bucci Morales 2013; Gerszten 1993; Hoshower et al. 1995; Kurin 2012; Torres-Rouff 2002, 2003; among others). Our results are different from this expectation, as they show that all geographic units share mostly the same morphological patterns of modification: fronto-occipital (F-O) flattening with projection in the obelonic zone and lambdoid-occipital (L-O) flattening with expansion of the frontal bone (Figs. 3–5). Conversely, from a temporal perspective, these morphologies are chronologically arranged in the whole study area: F-O morphologies are dated to the initial late Holocene (ca. 3000–1000 years BP) and L-O to the final late Holocene Fig. 4 Relative Warps Analysis with the MST groups—in colors—and deformation grids for NL sample. F-O fronto- occipital morphologies, L-O lambdoid-occipital morphologies, G globular morphologies (unmodified) Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 2603 (ca. 1000–100 years BP) (Table 2; Table 3). The morpholog- ical groups follow a chronological sequence and both are rep- resented in the whole region, which is incompatible with the expectation stated. Hence, cranial modification seems not to be connected with ethnic differentiation, which is also congru- ent with the usual co-existence of modified and unmodified individuals in the same mortuary sites of the area (e.g., Barrientos 1997; Bórmida 1953–1954; Flensborg 2012; Mariano 2011; Prates and Di Prado 2013; Prates et al. 2010a, b; Serna and Romano 2018). In a macro-regional scale, the available evidence also does not support the ethnic differentiation hypothesis. Even assum- ing that people from the northeastern Patagonia and southeast- ern Pampas were part of the same scattered ethnic group, and that the change of morphology over time was related with the penetration of a new ethnic component (e.g., Gerszten 1993; Mayall et al. 2017; Torres-Rouff and Yablonsky 2005), the pattern between morphology and chronology has a similar expression in a large part of Argentina, such as northwestern Patagonia (Perez et al. 2009a), central Patagonia (Gómez Otero and Dahinten 1997–1998; Bernal and Aguerre 2009), Dry Pampas (Berón and Baffi 2003), Central (Drube 2010; Fabra and Demarchi 2013), and Central Western regions (Béguelin et al. 2006). A simultaneous change in the cranial modification pattern among hunter-gatherers in such a large spatial scale (more than 700,000 km2) is hard to be thought as a part of a process of ethnic penetration and differentiation. Although there is no clear explanation for this trend so far, this change between morphologies coincided approximately with other changes in the Pampean-Patagonian material record. During ca. 1500–1000 years BP, some technologies (bow and arrow, Crivelli Montero 2010; pottery, Borges Vaz et al. 2016) and art motives (grecas, Gradin 1973, 2001; Menghin 1957) became widely used and spread. Also, the presence of exotic materials from long distances has been registered (Berón 2004, 2007; Gómez Otero 2003, 2006). The explana- tion about this change should be addressed with a comprehen- sive compilation of archeological data. If cranial vault modification was not an ethnic marker in Pampa-Patagonia during the late Holocene, which role could it have played? An insight to the intra-variation of morpho- logical groups might shed light on this. The results from the Fig. 5 Relative Warps Analysis with the MST groups—in colors—and deformation grids for ISEP sample. F-O fronto- occipital morphologies, L-O lambdoid-occipital morphologies, G globular morphologies (unmodified) 2604 Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 CVA shows that the F-O and L-O morphological groups are well separated from each other, and they present variability among samples within them (Fig. 6). The final shape of a modified cranium is the result of a combination of multiple factors (e.g., the intensity and duration of the shaping action, the type of shaping devices), and all of them can be organized and defined with the purpose of obtaining standardized forms, or they can just respond to local arbitrariness (see Geller 2004; Kuzminsky et al. 2016; Mayall et al. 2017; Torres-Rouff 2003). Some scholars have pointed out that the morphological variability of modified crania is mainly due to the personal preferences of the mother or the caretakers (Blackwood and Table 2 Modified crania with radiocarbon dates according to their morphological group Group Sample Individual Years BP Lab code Reference L-O ISEP LP1/1 aca. 352 ± 51 and 314 ± 45 AA-43126/AA-43127 Martínez 2004 LCH1_E1 470 ± 40 LP-501 Barrientos 1997 PA1_4 483 ± 20 Weighted mean Martínez et al. 2007 PA1_6 PA1_8 PA1_16 PA1_41 PA1_49 PA1_53 NL CM-Criadero 689 ± 44 AA75712 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 SB-409 593 ± 40 AA72636 Bernal et al. 2008 NRV RN-801 404 ± 40 AA72627 Bernal et al. 2008 RN-806 512 ± 41 AA72631 Bernal et al. 2008 RN-804 484 ± 43 AA82516 Gordón 2011 RN-862 527 ± 44 AA82520 Gordón 2011 RN-910 591 ± 44 AA82522 Gordón 2011 RN-890 493 ± 44 AA82521 Gordón 2011 LV5_2 868 ± 48 AA64293 Prates et al. 2011 F-O ISEP TR1_4 bca. 2245 ± 55 AA24048 Madrid and Barrientos 2000TR1_6 TR1_8 NL BQ-S1 Vi 2458 ± 50 AA75708 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 BS I 2195 ± 49 AA70720 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 BS IV 2300 ± 49 AA70719 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 SAOBA-I 2330 ± 49 AA75704 Favier Dubois et al. 2009 NRV RN-780 2989 ± 52 AA82514 Gordón 2011 RN-795 2502 ± 50 AA82515 Gordón 2011 RN-812 3002 ± 52 AA82517 Gordón 2011 RN-816 3009 ± 48 AA72628 Bernal et al. 2008 RN-817 3070 ± 49 AA72630 Bernal et al. 2008 RN-907 2642 ± 47 AA72634 Bernal et al. 2008 RN-914 2600 ± 47 AA72632 Bernal et al. 2008 LM1.E1.1 2088 ± 46 AA81827 Prates et al. 2010b NM2_2 1586 ± 47 AA89359 Serna and Prates 2012 a The cranium belongs to a multiple secondary burial with two dates: 352 ± 51 years BP (AA43126) and 314 ± 45 years BP (AA43127) b The crania belong to a multiple primary burial dated at 2245 ± 55 BP (AA24048) Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 2605 Danby 1955; Geller 2004: 381), so the morphologies can be just a consequence of some technical differences (Cassells 1972). In other words, the morphological variability could be related with the fact that the modification is being per- formed by members of the family (Hatt 1915), without the existence of specialists (Arriaza 1988; Kuzminsky et al. 2016). It is unlikely that there were specialists among the non-stratified and mobile Pampean-Patagonian hunter-gather- er bands, in contrast with stratified societies that may sought to build homogeneous forms of identity through body modifica- tions (e.g., Torres-Rouff 2003). Even the comparison between the frequencies of unmodified and modified (both morpholog- ical groups pooled together), shows that the latter reach rough- ly ca. 60% (NRV 56%, NL 61%, ISEP 63%). This means that cranial modification was not being practiced for the whole population and suggests that there should have been some autonomy in the decision to perform it. Unlike stratified soci- eties, which usually seek to control and organize the modifi- cation practice to generate homogeneous forms of identity, small-scale societies do not point to a large-scale unification. In those cases, the cranial vault modification is a less orga- nized practice oriented to more local social processes (Allison et al. 1981; Torres-Rouff 2003: 40–42). In a similar sense, it has been suggested that the variability of the disposal of the dead in the study region may have been due to a low standard- ization for funerary practices (Madrid and Barrientos 2000; Prates and Di Prado 2013). The morphological variability of cranial modification ob- served in this study is understood as the result of a non- standardized practice and the existence of local ways of doing. In contrast with the notion of differentiation, cranial vault modification patterns could have played an important role as a visual communication system among the people from Pampa-Patagonia during the late Holocene. As pointed above, several scholars have suggested a context of fluid interaction and communication at that time. The movable and rock art have been relevant for the conformation and reproduction of social networks through shared motives and decorations across large regions (e.g., Acevedo 2015; Bellelli et al. 2008; Carden 2009; Carden and Martínez 2014; Carden and Prates 2015; Curtoni 2006; Fiore 2006; Scheinson 2011; among others). These shared styles have been also observed in egg shells and pottery decoration, which was interpreted as an inter-group cohesion mechanism (Carden and Martínez 2014: 72), and as the consequence of contact situations where the designs were shared and copied (Di Prado 2015: 359). In this context of shared expressions at a macro-regional scale, cranial vault modification might have transmitted broad mes- sages and legitimized ideas through a different surface, the human body. Conclusions Different kind of evidences indicated that Pampa-Patagonia is a complex place of biological and social convergence (Barrientos and Perez 2002; Berón 2007, 2016; Bórmida 1953–1954; Bórmida and Casamiquela 1958–1959; Fortich Baca 1976; Prates 2008). In this paper, we address the role of the cranial vault modification as an ethnic marker using geometric morphometric techniques to organize the morpho- logical variation into morphological groups (F-O and L-O), and to recognize spatio-temporal patterns. The overall results of this paper do not support the idea of the cranial modifica- tion as an ethnic marker in the northeastern Patagonia and southeastern Pampas during the late Holocene. We found that the modified head shapes follow a temporal sequence and that they are present in the whole study area, as well as at a large geographic scale. This situation is not compatible with ethnic differentiation expectation stated, where the morphologies would vary synchronically throughout the space. Cranial modification in northeastern Patagonia and south- eastern Pampas would have represented another correlate of a macro-regional visual communication system that worked during the late Holocene. As seen in motives and decoration styles in different kinds of material expressions, the stylistic codes would be shared regionally without neglecting local Fig. 6 Canonical Variable Analysis of modified crania from each sample. Color Blue: lambdoid-occipital morphologies (L-O); Color Red: fronto- occipital morphologies (F-O); Color Black: centroid of each sample Table 3 Procrustes Analysis between the centroids of the samples in the space of Canonical Variable Analysis against geographic location and chronology Variables m12 Geography 0.03234 Chronology 0.9903 Chronology-geography 0.9904 2606 Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019) 11:2597–2610 ways of doing (cranial modification). The prime message would be contained in the modification shape, regardless of the technique or device used. Aside from the specific content of the message, the transmission was probably oriented to shared ideas and the motivation to carry out the modification probably was subject to different local contingencies that the Pampa-Patagonian hunter-gatherers experienced during the late Holocene. In the future, we plan to implement 3D images with geo- metric morphometric procedures in order to explore the tech- niques and devices used to modify the shape of the crania (e.g., Kuzminsky et al. 2016; Mayall and Pilbrow 2018). Through this methodology, we look to focus the attention in the variability within morphological groups and to enhance the discussion started here about the standardization of this modification practice among hunter-gathers. Acknowledgements We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICET, Argentina), PICT2012-242 and PICT2015-3645 projects. References Acevedo A (2015) Hachas grabadas. 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Abstract Introduction Materials and methods Archaeological background and analyzed sample Data acquisition Morphometric and statistical approach Results Discussion Conclusions References