Head Size of Chile’s Chinchorro Mummies Measured

SANTIAGO, CHILE—According to an IFL Science report, hunters and gatherers of the Chinchorro culture who lived in Chile’s Atacama Desert between 7,500 and 3,500 years ago may have suffered from poor nutrition. Noting that malnutrition in early life has been associated with reduced brain volume, Gonzalo M. Rojas-Costa of Finis Terrae University and his colleagues examined CT scans of 68 mummified Chinchorro heads. They then compared the results with scans of the heads of nine ancient farmers who lived in the same region and 83 modern Chileans. The study found that intracranial volume, and thus brain size, stayed largely the same following the transition from hunting and gathering to farming. But modern Chilean intracranial volume was found to be on average about 12 percent larger than that of the Chinchorro individuals. The difference in head size also suggests that modern Chilean men stand more than three inches taller than Chinchorro men did, while modern Chilean women are nearly two inches taller than the estimated height for Chinchorro women. These differences are thought to reflect twentieth-century improvements in nutrition, public health, sanitation, and education, the researchers concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Scientific Reports. To read more about the region's ancient mummified people, go to "Atacama's Decaying Mummies."