Shovel-Shaped Incisors in Early Atacama Indians

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Abstract
It has been suggested that shovel-shaped incisors are a Mongoloid trait in human dentition. Their high prevalence has been described in EasteraAsiatic Eskimo, and North American Indian races (A. Hrdlick 1920); (V. M. Carbonell There are also some references to shovel-shaped incisors in South American Indian population (E. Salles Cunha, 1959); (Ch. Brewer-Carias 1964). This paper discusses the appearance of shovel-shaped incisors in Atacama Indian skulls and mummies among the collections of the Archeologic Museum of the North of Chile; these collections are from the area of San Pedro de Atacama (Chile). The Atacamas lived 1,700 years ago in a desert zone surrounded by the Andes Mountains. Local cultural features suggest that they remained isolated until the Spanish conquest. Only 17 of the 311 skulls examined had upper incisors. Two mummies were also examined, one of which was dated to the year 260 AD by means of 14C Hrdlicka''s subjective scale was used to classify degrees of shoveling: shovel, semishovel, trace shovel, and no shovel. The double shovel-shaped incisors were also recorded (A. A. Dahlberg 1949). All of the 19 specimens studied showed shovel-shaped incisors. Twelve of 19 incisors (63%) were shovel-shaped, and the other 7 (37%) were semishovel-shaped. Six of the 19 incisors (31%) were double shovel-shaped. Neither trace-shovel nor no-shovel incisors were found. No significant association was found between the degree of shoveling and the double shovel shape (chi-square test = 18.55, p < 0.3). The findings of this investigation are in agreement with previous observations made on Mongoloid populations. In spite of the small number of specimens studied, the fact that all of them showed well-defined shovel-shaped incisors is significant. Only in well typified Mongoloid races, such as Eskimos and Mongolians, has such high prevalence of shovel-shaped incisors been reported (A. Hrdlicka, 1920; V. M. Carbonell, 1963). Furthermore, the high frequency of double shovel-shaped incisors in Atacamas confirmed the reports of previous workers on other Mongoloid races such as North American Indians (A. A. Dahlberg, 1949) and Aleut Eskimoid populations (C. F. A. Moorrees, 1957). It was also very much higher than in the only mention of double shovel-shaped incisors in South American Indians (Ch. Brewer-Carias, 1964: 13.6% in Yecuana Indians). Subjective errors of estimation of the degree of shoveling may be discarded because of the absence of trace shoveling in the Atacama sample. Trace shoveling was the most difficult to typify in a recent study carried out on the contemporary population of San Antonio de los Cobres, Salta, Argentina (F. C. H. Devoto, N. H. Arias, S. Rlnguelet, N. H. Palma, 1967). The 100% shovel and semishovel-shaped incisors and the high percentage of double shovel-shaped incisors found in Atacama Indians suggest that these Indians had a strong Mongoloid genetic component.

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