Jennifer Nalewicki is a Salt Lake City-based journalist whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics and more. She covers several science topics from planet Earth to paleontology and archaeology to health and culture. Prior to freelancing, Jennifer held an Editor role at Time Inc.
A mass burial contains the remains of more than 100 individuals who were sacrificed as part of a series of ancient Maya rituals, a new study finds. Unusually, the remains were all from young boys, and they were buried over a 500-year period.
"Most of them were between 3 and 6 years old," lead author Rodrigo Barquera, a postdoctoral researcher at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, told Live Science."Since many of the individuals were related to each other to some extent, that tells us that it's probable that only specific families would have had access to this burial and that not just anyone could put their kids in there — it was a big honor.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Researchers found some characteristics of the burial surprising, as similar Maya burials typically contained either only young females or a mix of males and females, the latter of which was the case at a known burial called the Sacred Cenote, also at Chichén Itzá.
RELATED STORIES—Maya nobility performed bloodletting sacrifices to strengthen a 'dying' sun god during solar eclipses—Deformed skulls and ritual beheadings found at Maya pyramid in Mexico
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