2024-06-16 01:34:42
The examine was carried out within the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, the place the traditional metropolis of Chichen Itza was positioned. This metropolis is maybe finest identified for the traces of formality murders that befell between 800 and 1000 AD. Nonetheless, this follow has at all times been poorly understood.
Mayan civilization from about 2000 AD. Ave. us till 1500 included all of present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. They had been well-known for his or her refined information of astronomy, arithmetic and calendar programs, in addition to their elaborate architectural buildings.
Ritual murders had been an necessary facet of Mayan civilization, intertwined with non secular and cosmological beliefs. These practices had been carried out to appease the gods, guarantee agricultural fertility, and preserve cosmic order. The researchers believed that the sacrificed folks had been usually captives or volunteers, and the sacrifices befell throughout necessary ceremonies.
Nonetheless, a world staff of researchers consisting of consultants from the Max Planck Institutes for Evolutionary Anthropology and Geoanthropology, Harvard College and establishments in Mexico have now revealed extra details.
They carried out a genetic evaluation of the stays of 64 kids present in an underground chamber. Initially a water cistern – or chultún – this chamber was used for ritual functions for greater than 500 years, with stays courting again to between 800 and 1500 AD.
The researchers discovered that each one the youngsters had been male, contradicting earlier assumptions that ladies had been favored in ritual sacrifice.
The researchers additionally discovered that most of the kids had been carefully associated, and a few of them had been an identical twins. These findings counsel that consanguineous male kids had been particularly chosen for ritual sacrifice.
“The male kids’s related age and food regimen, their shut genetic affinity, and the truth that they had been buried in the identical place for greater than 200 years point out that the chultun is their post-sacrificial burial website,” – states within the report The INAH district is the official middle of Oana Del Castillo-Chavez.
The examine offers hyperlinks to the Mayan religious textual content Popol Vuh, which tells the story of dual heroes who undergo cycles of sacrifice and resurrection. These tales had been deeply rooted in Mayan tradition and artwork, so it may be assumed that the choices at Chichen Itza could have mirrored these historical tales.
“twentieth century early accounts falsely popularized grotesque tales of younger girls and ladies being sacrificed on the website,” says Christina Warinner of Harvard College. “This examine turns this story the wrong way up and divulges deep connections between ritual sacrifice and the cycles of human dying and rebirth described in sacred Mayan texts.”
The examine is revealed within the journal Nature.
2024-06-16 01:34:42