Pachacamac is a major precolumbian site located on Peru’s Central Coast. Covering approximately 6 km2, the site was occupied for over a thousand years before the Spanish conquest in the early sixteenth century. In 2012, the Ychsma Project discovered a unique Late Intermediate period (AD 900–1470) multiple burial (“Cx4”) made of two funerary chambers with a vegetal roof structure, containing over 110 intact and fragmentary deceased together with numerous grave goods. More than 60% of the individuals are subadults whose sex cannot be assigned using osteological observation. Among the adults, 23 females and 20 males were identified, and the sex of the remaining four individuals couldn’t be assigned with certainty. We aim to fully understand the sociobiology of the Cx4 population, including biological sex, using a combined bioarchaeology and molecular archaeology approach. Despite significant human modern contamination and low amounts of endogenous ancient DNA, our results show that sex could be assigned genetically in >70% of the cases, including subadults. Sex identification of infants, children and adolescents is crucial to fully understand this complex context and its funerary recruitment, and to perform an integrated and holistic analysis of all associated data.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024
The hermaphroditic, facultatively selfing, land snail Rumina decollata is a common, widespread species indigenous in the western Mediterranean region, that has been introduced in many other parts of the world. Recent DNA sequence analyses have shown that R. decollata is a complex of several (phylogenetic) species, two of them corresponding to previously distinguished allozyme strains with different body colours (light vs. dark). Therefore, considering this new taxonomic interpretation, we here attempt to identify which, and how many, species of the R. decollata complex have been introduced outside their native area. Comparative DNA sequence analysis of introduced populations from South America, North America, Japan and the North Atlantic Islands vs. native populations from the Mediterranean area, revealed that all introduced populations belong to one single phylogenetic species, previously recognized as the dark strain. Therefore, the colonizing and invasive character of R. decollata is mainly, if not entirely, due to this dark strain. Furthermore, the Iberian Peninsula seems to be an important source for introduced R. decollata populations outside Europe. Within this work, we will discuss about the invasive character of the dark strain and the possible source areas of the introduced populations.
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