August 26, 2015

New Research on Mass Burials at Cahokia.

Researchers have been studying mass sacrifices at the site of Cahokia which took place between 1000-1100 CE. 270 bodies were found in a mass grave at Mound 72, mostly young women. They were killed by strangulation or bloodletting. And there was a separate group of 39 men and women in a separate deposit that evidenced brutal fractures, stone points embedded in their bones, decapitation. The researchers have found that all of the victims came from Cahokia or very nearby. The 39 dead who died brutally may have been part of an isolated group at Cahokia, since they differ from those in the larger mass grave in some respects. They analyzed 203 teeth from 109 individuals. They studied 24 individuals in a mass burial mound dated to 1000 CE, 50 individuals at another burial site dated to 1050 CE, and another two-layered mass burial containing peaceful burials on top and mutilated individuals beneath. They were lined up and pushed in. The strontium levels in the teeth of the dead shows most were local to Cahokia. A few were not local in each burial site. But the brutally killed were all local to Cahokia.
These findings refute theories that the sacrificed were tributes from other areas outside of Cahokia or war captives.
The team reports their findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Western Digs has the report here;
http://westerndigs.org/victims-of-human-sacrifice-at-cahokia-were-locals-not-captives-study-finds/

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