Archaeologists make chilling discovery inside 'Blood Cave' used for ancient Mayan rituals
Cueva de Sangre, or the 'Blood Cave', is located underneath the archaeological site of Dos Pilas in Petén, Guatemala. It's one of more than a dozen caves in this region that were used by the Maya between 400 BC and AD 250.
In the early 1990s, a survey uncovered a large collection of human bones from the Blood Cave, many of which showed evidence of traumatic injuries around the time of death.
Now, a new analysis of the remains determined that the injuries resulted from ritual dismemberment that took place during a sacrifice some 2,000 years ago.
For example, a skull fragment that came from the left side of the forehead bore evidence that someone struck it with a hatchet-like tool, and child's hip bone was found with a similar mark.
What's more, researchers found the bones were scattered across the cave floor and arranged in peculiar, perhaps ritualistic ways.
During the original survey, excavators uncovered a series of four stacked skull caps in one part of the cave.
Ritual artifacts recovered alongside the bones — such as obsidian blades and red ochre, a naturally-occurring rust-colored pigment — provide further evidence that some sort of ceremony took place inside the Blood Cave.
Co-researcher and forensic anthropologist Ellen Frianco told Live Science that the amount of human remains found in the cave, the injuries they bore and the presence of ritual objects point to the fact that this was most likely a sacrificial site.
She and her colleague, bioarchaeologist Michele Bleuze, presented the results of their analysis at the annual Society for American Archaeology meeting in April.
The Blood Cave was first discovered in the 1990s during the Petexbatun Regional Cave Survey, which sought to explore the subterranean structures beneath the ancient Maya city of Dos Pilas.
This particular cave caught excavators' attention because it contained a strikingly large collection of human bones with signs of dismemberment and traumatic injuries.
Interestingly, the Blood Cave can only be accessed through a small opening that descends into a low passageway that leads to a pool of water.
Because of its structure, the cave is flooded for most of the year, and is only accessible during the dry season between March and May.
This would have been true during the time of the Maya too, leading Frianco and Bleuze to believe that the sacrificial remains inside the cave were an offering to the rain god, Chaac.
The Maya commonly performed human sacrifices as a way to appease the gods during times of crisis, such as a drought.
Cueva de Sangre, or the 'Blood Cave', is located underneath the archaeological site of Dos Pilas in Petén, Guatemala. It's one of more than a dozen caves in this region that were used by the Maya between 400 BC and AD 250
The researchers note that descendants of the Maya still practice a similar ritual today.
On May 3, or the Day of the Holy Cross, people visit caves to pray for rain and a good harvest at the end of the dry season.
But there is no sacrifice involved in this contemporary celebration.
Though their analysis pointed strong evidence to suggest that the Blood Cave was used for ritualistic human sacrifice, Frianco and Bleuze say there is still more work to be done.
The researchers plan to study the ancient DNA within these bones to learn more about who the deceased were.
They will also perform stable isotope analyses, which can yield information about the diets and migration patterns of the deceased as well as the environmental conditions during the time they were alive.
'Right now, our focus is who are these people deposited here, because they're treated completely differently than the majority of the population,' Bleuze told Live Science.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Stone Age humans were picky about which rocks they used for making tools, study finds
Early human ancestors during the Old Stone Age were more picky about the rocks they used for making tools than previously known, according to research published Friday. Not only did these early people make tools, they had a mental picture of where suitable raw materials were located and planned ahead to use them, traveling long distances. By around 2.6 million years ago, early humans had developed a method of pounding rocks together to chip off sharp flakes that could be used as blades for butchering meat. This allowed them to feast on large animals like hippos that gathered near a freshwater spring at the Nyayanga archaeological site in Kenya. 'But hippo skin is really tough" — and not all rocks were suitable for creating blades sharp enough to pierce hippo skin, said co-author Thomas Plummer, a paleoanthropologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. Co-author Emma Finestone of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History added: 'When we think about stone tools, not every rock is equal in terms of the quality of tools.' At the Nyayanga site, researchers found durable blades made of quartzite, a rock material that they traced to streambeds and other locations around 8 miles (13 kilometers) away. The new research appears in the journal Science Advances. 'This suggests they've got a mental map of where different resources are distributed across the landscape,' said co-author Rick Potts of the Smithsonian 's Human Origins Program. Previously, researchers had assumed the stones may have been found within just a mile or so of the freshwater spring site. The new study shows that 'these early humans were thinking ahead. This is probably the earliest time we have in the archaeological record an indication of that behavior,' said Eric Delson, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the research. The oldest previously known example of early human ancestors transporting raw materials for tool-making was about 600,000 years later than the Nyayanga site. Researchers said it's unclear who these early toolmakers were — whether members of the Homo genus or a related but extinct branch of the family tree, such as Paranthropus. Homo sapiens did not arise until much later, around 300,000 years ago. But the knack for seeking out the best raw materials to make simple technology dates back nearly 3 million years. 'We today are a species that's still technology-dependent — using tools to spread around the world and adapt to different environments,' said Finestone. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Skeletons with Sub-saharan grandparents found in Dorset and Kent
A boy and girl who lived in medieval England likely had grandparents from Africa, according to new findings by DNA from the skeletons - which are over a thousand years old - was tested by scientists to reveal their boy was found in a medieval cemetery in Dorset, and the girl was found at cemetery in archaeologists said they were surprised to find early medieval skeletons with grandparents from so far away. What did the scientists find? The scientists originally tested the DNA of 23 bodies that were found in a medieval they studied their DNA most of the skeletons buried there had either northern European or western British and Irish scientists were amazed to find that one person at each cemetery had a recent ancestor from west fact, the team found that between 20 to 40 percent of the ancestry in the skeletons was from sub-Saharan Africa. They even revealed that the individuals had similar DNA to groups living in west Africa right now, such as the Yoruba, Mende, Mandenka and Esan groups. 'A diverse population' According to researchers, the findings suggest that medieval Britain may have been more diverse than once of the researchers, Dr Edwards, said the results suggested "a diverse population with far-flung connections who were, nonetheless, fully integrated into the fabric of daily life." Another of the team, Dr Sayer, said the finding was "fascinating" because the children were buried in very different places, but had such similar DNA.
.jpeg%3Ftrim%3D63%2C0%2C63%2C0%26width%3D1200%26height%3D800%26crop%3D1200%3A800&w=3840&q=100)
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
DNA testing of 1,400-year-old skeletons reveals ethnic diversity of early England
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of people of sub-Saharan African descent living in Britain more than 1,300 years ago. It's not only the earliest evidence in Britain of people with recent Black African ancestry – it is also the earliest genetic evidence anywhere in Europe. Because only a tiny percentage (probably less than 1 per cent) of Roman and early medieval British and continental European skeletons have been DNA-tested, it is conceivable that there were dozens of sub-Saharan African descendants living in Anglo-Saxon England. The newly discovered evidence of Black Africans' descendants living in early Anglo-Saxon era Britain comes from DNA tests (carried out as part of a mainly Anglo-German study) on two 7th century children buried in two separate early medieval cemeteries – one in Kent, the other in Dorset. Although the two individuals do not appear to have been related to each other, both had a Black African grandparent and both of those grandparents came from what is now southern Nigeria. Although there is no genetic indication of the sex of either the Kent or the Dorset child's Nigerian grandparents, some more general historical information, from other totally separate research by other scholars, does suggest that both Nigerians are, on balance of probabilities, likely to have been female. The Anglo-German study (published on Wednesday in the UK archaeological journal Antiquity) makes it clear that It's not known for sure how the two Nigerians crossed the Sahara and ended up in late 6th century Europe. However, evidence from other investigations into African trade by other academics suggest that one of the options – and perhaps the most likely – is that they were trafficked as slaves. Although the transatlantic slave trade was more than 1,000 years later and although the Arab slave trade was 100 years in the future, there was nevertheless a significant Saharan slave trade carried out by at least two powerful pre-Arab Sahara region states (the Garamantes of southern Libya, and probably also the Gaetuli of southern Morocco). Surveys of Sahara region rock art (including images of chariots and armed horsemen) have, over recent years, been advancing archaeologists ' appreciation of the ultra-mobile armed nature of warriors and potential slave-raiders associated with such Saharan states. It is therefore likely that slave traders and raiders from those or similar states were the trans-Saharan slave traffickers involved in bringing slaves from West Africa to Europe. Of great potential significance is the fact that the Kent child (the granddaughter of a Nigerian) was buried in an almost certainly royal-connected cemetery, located just 900 metres south of a royal palace of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent. She was buried with a knife, a spoon, a bone comb and a fine, wheel-turned decorated pot, similar to ceramics imported from France. Several of these grave goods suggest that she was from a socially relatively elite family. What's more, her aunt, one of her grandmothers and one of her great-grandfathers were also buried in that same royal cemetery. All these factors suggest that the family was part of, or somehow associated with, the early medieval Kingdom of Kent's ruling elite. The Kent child's Nigerian grandparent (whose burial location is as yet unknown) was probably trafficked from Nigeria to Europe in or around the late 6th century. The Kingdom of Kent was strongly influenced by France. Indeed, it may, for a time, have been politically subject to France. The presence of a Nigerian-ancestry individual in Anglo-Saxon Kent is therefore very likely a direct consequence of French influence over Kent. Very significantly, there was a partly politically motivated tradition in 6th century France in which French royals married their slaves. The practice is believed to have been motivated by a fear of acquiring powerful parents-in-law and brothers-in-law who might want to acquire power in or over their wealth and land. Marrying enslaved people had no such downsides – and marrying enslaved people from far away would have lent royal and royal-associated elites a sense of global cosmopolitan identity, without any risks of greedy dynastic interference, influence and competition. The Kent child (and her recent ancestors' possible partly French cultural or other connections) is also significant because it may have formed an unexpected part of the story of Anglo-Saxon England's conversion to Christianity. It is likely that the child – a young girl aged just 12 – was born in the first half of the 7th century (in the period following the 597AD conversion of the Kingdom of Kent to Christianity). That conversion, one of the most important events in English history, took place courtesy of pro-papal French royalty and diplomats. It marked the beginning of the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England to the Christian religion. The child's mother or father (or indeed both) may therefore have been be part of the influx of royals and other members of the French elite who came to England in the run-up to the conversion or immediately following it. The other child with partly Nigerian ancestry, the one buried in Dorset, died aged around 16 in around the 630s. The cause of death is not yet known for either of them. However, plague had arrived in Britain in the mid-6th century and the consequent plague pandemic persisted in Europe and almost certainly in Britain for well over 100 years. It is therefore conceivable that both children had succumbed to that disease. The child burials were in early medieval cemeteries located at Updown (near Eastry) in the extreme east of Kent, and at Worth Matravers, near Swanage, Dorset. The Kent child's DNA was particularly well-preserved and it was revealed that she almost certainly had brown eyes, dark hair and a Mediterranean or North African complexion, which would have contrasted with the very pale skin colour, blue eyes and often blonde hair of most early Anglo-Saxons, especially members of the royal-associated elites, who mainly had ancestry in northern Germany and Denmark. The crucial DNA tests were carried at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany, and at the University of Huddersfield. 'It is significant that it is human DNA – and therefore the movement of people, and not just objects – that is now starting to reveal the nature of long-distance interaction to the continent, Byzantium and sub-Saharan Africa,' said the paper's lead author, Professor Duncan Sayer of the University of Lancashire. 'What is fascinating about these two individuals is that this international connection is found in both the east and west of Britain. Updown is right in the centre of the early Anglo-Saxon cultural zone and Worth Matravers, by contrast, is just outside its periphery in the sub-Roman west.'
