They say the past is a foreign country, and it never feels more true than when archaeologists discover the ways ancient peoples sometimes treated their children. A new study in the journal Antiquity has announced the discovery of a victim of child sacrifice who was buried in a “unique” way in Chihuahua, Mexico.
The burial site was first dug up in the 1950s and 1960s. Modern dating techniques and DNA analysis put the child’s age at between two and five years old, and suggest the child was buried between 1301 and 1397, a time before the Spanish had colonized what is now Central and South America.
The child, whose sex is not known, was buried in a building known as the House of the Well. Researchers believe this was a ceremonial structure given the sacred items found in it, and its building on top of a water well that was considered sacred. The child, thought to be a victim of ritual sacrifice, was buried in the building beneath a structural support beam holding up the roof.
That also means the child was likely part of what that society considered aristocracy. Burial in such a building would be equivalent to how only the highest-status people would be buried within churches in European contexts.
Fascinatingly, DNA examination also revealed that the child’s parents were closely related to one another. Lead study author Jakob Sedig said the parents were not brother and sister, but “more closely related than first cousins.” In fact, they shared between a quarter and half of their DNA. The possible familial relationships that would explain this are all unpalatable to modern sensibilities. The parents may have been a combination of aunt/uncle-niece/nephew, grandparent/grandchild, or half-siblings. Sedig said no one would have suspected such a close relationship until it showed up in the DNA.
The authors speculate that the child might have been sacrificed as part of a religious ritual, or to give a high-status family even more cultural or political power.
The initial archaeological digs in the mid-20th century at the site uncovered large cross-shaped and serpent-shaped mounds, the underground well, an aqueduct, and large buildings made out of adobe.
