Determining South American camelid domestication through skeletal morphology

South American camelids were domesticated approximately 6000 to 7000 years ago for their meat, coats and usage as beasts of burden. There are two genera of South American camelids, Lama and Vicugna, each with an extant wild and domesticated species. This thesis looks at assorted collections from Northern Chile in an attempt to find differences in skeletal morphology that will be able to identify a domesticated camelid from a wild one. This was accomplished by performing a series of measurements on collections from the Museo Arqueológico de La Serena in La Serena, Chile. Statistical analysis was performed to see if there is a difference in the bone sizes between the time periods represented in the collections and to determine if it is significant. While a statistical significance was found for some measurements, the hypothesis that a morphological difference would be present to identify domesticates was unable to be supported because species of the same genera in this area of Chile are too similar in overall size.M.A.Includes bibliographical referencesby Russell Gran