DNA reveals ritual of sacrificing boys, including twins, in ancient Mayan city, scientists say

In-depth research focusing on genetic material found in a ancient Mayan temple points to a pattern of sacrificing twin boys and other close relatives, according to one new study led by an international team of experts.

The city of Chichen Itza, built on what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, has been investigated by archaeologists for more than 100 years, according to a press release from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, an independent association of German research institutes. . Several researchers associated with the Max Planck Institutes were part of the multi-part analysis supporting the new study. The city is “perhaps best known for its extensive evidence of ritual killing”, a press release announcing the findings observed.

Previous archaeologists have found physical remains of people who were sacrificed, the press release said, and dredging of the city’s Sacred Cenote, a large sinkhole in the city, revealed the remains of hundreds of human sacrifices.

Although many of those found in the cenote were children and teenagers, little was known about the “role and context of ritual murder at the site,” the press release said. In 1967, an underground chamber near the cenote was found filled with the remains of more than 100 children.

Previous researchers believed that girls and young women were the “main focus” of the sacrifices carried out in and around the cenote, but when the team behind the new study conducted an “in-depth genetic investigation” of 64 sets of remains, they found that all of the remains were those of male children, according to the press release and study.

The boys were all selected from local populations and at least a quarter of the children were close relatives of another child found in the cave. Many of those who were related had similar diets, the tests showed, suggesting the boys lived in the same house. These factors indicate that related male children were likely “being selected in pairs for ritual activities,” the press release said.

The remains found were dated between the 7th and 12th centuries, showing that ritual sacrifices took place over 500 years, the press release said, although most of the children were buried there over a 200-year period.

“The similar ages and diets of the male children, their close genetic relationship, and the fact that they were buried in the same location for over 200 years point to the chultún as a post-sacrificial burial site, with the sacrificed individuals being selected for a specific reason,” said Oana Del Castillo-Chávez, study co-author and researcher in the Physical Anthropology Section of the INAH Yucatán Center, who was part of the team that studied the remains, in the press release.

Researchers were able to identify two pairs of identical twins among the remains. Twins “hold a special place in the origin stories and spiritual lives of the ancient Maya,” according to the press release, with twin sacrifice appearing in a sacred text known as the Popol Vuh. In this text, two twin boys descend into the underworld and are sacrificed by the gods. They are later avenged by another pair of twins, known as the “Hero Twins”, whose deeds are “widely depicted in Classic Mayan art”.

Christina Warinner, associate professor of social sciences and anthropology at Harvard University and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said in the press release that she hopes the new research sheds new light on what ritual sacrifice is in the Mayan civilization it seemed and meant.

“Reports from the early 20th century falsely popularized lurid stories of young women and girls being sacrificed at the site,” Warinner said in the press release. “This study, conducted as a close international collaboration, turns that story on its head and reveals the deep connections between ritual sacrifice and the cycles of human death and rebirth described in sacred Mayan texts.”