Do We Still Practice Human Sacrifice?
We May Not Be Chopping Off Heads on Pyramids Anymore, But What Are We Doing?
I reading a book about East Asian Archaeology last year, when an odd detail stuck out to me. In many of the monumental buildings that have been excavated from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages sites in China, we find the corpses of people in the foundations. Now, we know that at other sites, like Çatalhöyük in what is now Turkey, relatives were often interred under houses. Those bodies are carefully wrapped and placed under the floor before being covered.
Not so for these bodies in China. Many show signs of torture and mutilation before being buried in the building’s foundation. Furthermore, isotopic analysis of their bones reveals that they were a distinct population from those who lived at these settlements. They were from elsewhere. It’s currently believed that they were captured in some kind of conflict, held in the settlement for a few years, and then finally sacrificed and laid to rest in the building’s foundation as a way to ensure that the building would last, or that the work done in the building would prosper. In other words, the lives of these captives…