HUMAN SKELETAL REMAINS OF THE ANCIENT MAYA IN THE ...

38of the young woman involved the ritual extraction of her heart evidenced by the cutmarks on the ribs and vertebrae.Multiple burials occasionally contain the remains of an adult accompanied byone or more subadults as evidenced in the abovementioned burial. The interpretation ofthis burial type as an example of human sacrifice may be problematic. However, there isevidence of adult and subadult individuals interpreted as possible sacrifices in ritualsettings. Pendergast (1971) identified the primary burial of a three to five year old childin Eduardo Quiroz Cave, Belize. Pendergast (1971:113) tentatively posits that the childmay represent “a human sacrifice as a constructional offering…” based on the locationof the burial and the identification of two small holes in the right parietal bone. He thengoes on to say that it is difficult to assess whether the child represents a sacrificialoffering or a simple primary burial. The Cenote of Sacrifice in Chichen Itza containsone of the most well known skeletal deposits, which is often interpreted as the remainsof sacrificial victims thrown into a deep sinkhole as an act to appease the gods (Hooton1940, Tozzer 1957). Furthermore, the skeletal remains of several subadult individualsrecovered from Barton Creek (Owens 2002) and Actun Tunichil Muknal (Gibbs 2000)may represent sacrificial victims. These interpretations are based on several keyelements: 1) the haphazard deposition of several semi-articulated bodies is not inaccordance with traditional burial practices; 2) there is a general lack of grave goodsdirectly associated with the remains; and 3) the remains of several infants and a youngchild contain evidence of possible trauma to the skull.