[Aztlan] Hard evidence of Maya human sacrifice

[Stephen Whittington]

Jules,

We have hard evidence of Maya human sacrifice. At the Late Postclassic site of
Iximche, Guatemala, there were 50 decapitations in pits adjacent to small
platforms that appear to have been altars. Many of the crania bear clear
evidence of decapitation, demonstrating that they were not simply mementos
removed from graves after the flesh had disintegrated. If you want to read all
of the details, get Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Iximche by Nance,
Whittington, and Borg. Another site with bony evidence of human sacrifice by
decapitation is Terminal Classic Colha. There have been various publications on
this by Steele and Massey. You can find one of Massey's in Bones of the Maya,
edited by Whittington and Reed. An article that deals with more bony evidence
of sacrifice that should be coming out soon in Latin American Antiquity is
PROCEDURES IN HUMAN HEART EXTRACTION AND RITUAL MEANING. AN OSTEOTAPHONOMIC
ASSESSMENT OF ANTHROPOGENIC MARKS IN CLASSIC MAYA SKELETONS by Vera Tiesler and
 Andrea Cucina. Moving back still further in time, you can read about the
decapitation and murder (at least) of men, women, and children at 4th-5th
century Yaxuna by clicking on an abstract from Archaeology Magazine:
http://www.archaeology.org/9805/abstracts/maya.html. There are also many Maya
sites in which infants and children were placed in deposits within construction
fill, although evidence of sacrifice on their bones is usually lacking due to
poor preservation or the manner in which they were sacrificed.

-- 
Stephen L. Whittington, Ph.D.
Director
Museum of Anthropology
Wake Forest University
P.O. Box 7267
Winston-Salem, NC 27109
336-758-5827 (voice)
336-758-5116 (fax)