[Aztlan] The Chichen Cenote, and "boy sacrifice"

[Cameron Griffith]

> Archaeologist Guillermo Anda from the University of the Yucatan has
> pieced together the bones of 127 bodies at the bottom of a Chichen
> Itza cenote and found 80% were boys between 3-11 and the others were
> mostly adult males thus disproving that the Maya sacrificed virgins
> to the wells. The children were skinned or dismembered before being
> thrown in.
>
> The Daily Telegraph of Australia has the story here;
>
> http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23095592-5001028,00.html

Using the above paragraph as the teaser for this story is quite 
misleading.  It makes it sound like Anda performed a rigorous 
scientific analysis of bones from a sample of 127 MNI, then determined 
that 80% were boys.  The end of the article reveals the true nature of 
this determination:

>> It was difficult to determine the sex of skeletons before they were 
>> fully matured, said Mr de Anda, but he believed cultural evidence 
>> from Mayan mythology would suggest the young victims were actually 
>> male.<<

So, in other words, it is not possible to sex skeletons that have not 
reached puberty, as there is scarcely any sexual dimorphism in 
preadolescent children, and even with some adult skeletal material it 
is still difficult. In addition to this, there is no compelling 
evidence presented in the article that indicates that the skeletal 
material represents human sacrifice in the first place.

This article surely is an attention-grabber, but hardly focused on 
detailing the facts.