Universidad Nacional de La Plata

Graduate Student, División ANtropología

Phd student - National Council of Science and Technology CONICET

Thesis Title: Dental and craniofacial variation in the Northern Andes during the late Pleistocene and the Holocene: their implications for the early settlement of South America

About

I am a PhD student in Anthropology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum, National University of La Plata, Argentina.

My PhD research is about the early peopling of South America as viewed from cranial and dental indicators within a chronological and paleoenvironmental framework.  Specifically, I am interested in the study of the timing, pattern, process and tempo of the early exploration and colonization of Northern South America, a very important region for the study of the initial human colonization of the subcontinent. The theoretical bases of my research are the human biogeography and the evolutionary geography where multiple archaeological, bioarchaeological, chronological and environmental indicators are addressed to understand the cultural and biological diversification occurred in the study area during the late Pleistocene and throughout the Holocene.

Other topic addressed in my current research is the transition from a hunting and gathering economy to a subsystem system based on food production using bioarchaeological and chemical data such as stable isotopes and dental indicators (oral pathologies and dental wear).

In addition I have collaborated in the investigation of the population history, structure and admixture in recent and past Amerindians using molecular variants (mtDNA; Y-chromosome, autosomal). For this research I am working with two research teams one directed by Dr. Andres Ruiz Linares (Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London) and the other directed by Dr. Mark Stoneking (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Evolutionary Genetics).

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