Human Sacrifice (Other Keyword)
1-7 (7 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations at the Peruvian northern coastal site of Huanchaquito-Las Llamas (HLL) revealed the largest mass human sacrifice event in the Americas, with more than 400 sacrificed children, women, and camelids governed under the Chimú State. Dated to the Chimú’s imperial decline (circa 1450 CE), preliminary genetic analyses indicate that these children were...
Case of Carrion's Disease Associated With Human Sacrifice from the Huari Culture of Southern Peru (1974)
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Geographic Origins of Child Sacrifices: Radiogenic Strontium Isotope Analyses from Midnight Terror Cave, Belize (2016)
Midnight Terror Cave, located in the Cayo district in Belize, has produced the largest skeletal assemblage reported from a Maya cave. Large-scale modification of the cave for public gatherings indicates that the space was used ritualistically; most of the individuals recovered are believed to be human sacrifices. The assemblage size permitted us to select a relatively large sample of permanent lower first molars from juveniles for radiogenic strontium isotope analyses. Juveniles were the only...
Human Sacrifice at Tula: Reputation, Representation, and Actuality (2016)
Since the mid-twentieth century, it has been a staple of the archaeological and art historical literature on Tula, echoed in popular coverage of the site, that its art is dominated by themes of human sacrifice, and that Toltec involvement in this practice exceeded that of prior Mesoamerican cultures in scope and intensity. In fact, there are no direct representations of human sacrifice in Tula’s art. Although the eclectic Tula art tradition drew on many sources, it rejected the graphic...
Identity, ritual, and violence in the Epiclassic Basin of Mexico (2016)
The practice of human sacrifice has a remarkable time depth within Mesoamerica. However, it is often misunderstood as a social practice. In this project, I investigate an Epiclassic (600-900 CE) shrine site in the northern Basin of Mexico, where over 150 male, human crania showing evidence of decapitation were unearthed. The Epiclassic period in the Basin of Mexico was a period of political fragmentation, migration, and warfare. I explore the identities of the individuals using a combination of...
Subadult Human Sacrifices in Midnight Terror Cave (2016)
Children throughout Mesoamerica were preferred sacrificial victims, especially to water deities. Because caves were associated with rain, ethnohistoric sources mention the sacrifice of children in caves. The importance of children in sacrifice was documented early on by Edward Thompson’s dredging of the Cenote of Sacrifice at Chichen Itza. More recently archaeological investigations of caves have recovered and identified the skeletal remains of children that have been interpreted as sacrificial...
Victims or Venerated? A Bioarchaeological Examination of Gendered Ritual Violence and Social Identity of the Possible Aqlla at Túcume, Peru (2018)
Human sacrifices are frequently referred to as ‘victims’ of ritual violence, which presupposes that the sacrificed had no control over their fate or were unjustly harmed. Many examples of human sacrifice have been identified recently across the north coast of Peru involving a range of time periods and bodily treatment to suggest that there was incredible variation in practice, including in the identity of those sacrificed. Both males and females have been identified as sacrifices, but rarely are...