Fitzroy’s Fighting Fuegians: Comparison of Palaeopathological and Ethnographic Indications of Fighting Behaviour in an Extinct Human Population

摘要

The Selk’nam were an indigenous population of Tierra del Fuego that are now extinct. Contemporary accounts,including those of Robert Fitzroy and Charles Darwin, attest to their prodigious size and strength. Theseaccounts and others record that the Selk’nam were enthusiastic wrestlers and fought till one or other of theopponents could no longer continue. Presented here is a case of traumatic injury to the ulnae and radii of aSelk’nam male that is concomitant with injuries sustained during such activity and as such would provideintriguing evidence of this practice in the skeletal record of an extinct human population.