CONTRIBUTIONS OF CHEMICAL DIETARY RECONSTRUCTION TO THE ASSESSMENT OFADAPTATION BY ANCIENT HIGHLAND IMMIGRANTS (ALTO-RAMIREZ) TO COASTAL CONDITIONS AT PISAGUA, NORTH CHILE

At the latitudes of northern Chile the earliest migrants from the high lands were members of the Alto Ramirez cultural group. They arrived in the lower valleys about 1000 BC, where they transferred their highlan d practices of agriculture and pastoralism to those lower valley sites , acquiring only a minority of their dietary needs from the nearby sea . The unexpected archaeological finding of 11 spontaneously mummified Alto Ramirez bodies at a beach site near Pisagua, northern Chile, prov ided us an opportunity to evaluate the degree to which they had absorb ed and adapted to the subsistence strategy of their purely maritime co astal predecessors (the Chinchorros and their immediate successors, th e Quiani people). Using the methodology of chemical dietary reconstruc tion, supplemented by anatomic observations (external auditory canal e xostoses, a ''marker'' for prolonged cold water exposure-diving; denta l analysis), it became clear that this group's subsistence strategy wa s indistinguishable from that of the coastal maritime populations. Thi s reflects a high degree of coastal adaptation by the highlanders and suggests that they may have been functioning as a subgroup of ''marine specialists'' for their lower valley kin.