DNA analyses of bodies in a mass burial site in the famous ruined Mayan city of Chichén Itzá, in today's Mexico, have revealed the practice of ritual sacrifice of infant males, according to newly published research.
An international team of researchers conducted an in-depth genetic investigation of the remains of 64 children who were ritually buried in Chichén Itzá's ceremonial centre between the years 500 and 900 AD.
The analysis showed that all individuals were male, between three and six years old and had close kin relationships, including two pairs of identical twins.
They are believed to have been sacrificed over a period of 500 years, though the majority of them were interred during the 200-year period of Chichén Itzá’s political apex between 800 to 1,000 AD, according to the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
The finding appears to suggest a connection to the Maya origin myths of the Popol Vuh, a sacred text featuring the so-called Hero Twins, central figures in the Mayan mythology who were transformed into the sun and the moon.
According to Mexico's Ministry of Culture these was the first time that twins were identified in an ancient Maya funerary context.
Co-author Kathrin Nägele, from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said that identifying two sets of identical twins was surprising.
"The findings tell us that the children had been selected in pairs for ritual activities," said Oana Del Castillo-Chávez, co-author and researcher in the Physical Anthropology Section at Mexico's Centro INAH Yucatán.
"Early 20th century accounts falsely popularized lurid tales of young women and girls being sacrificed at the site," said Christina Warinner, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
"This study, conducted as a close international collaboration, turns that story on its head and reveals the deep connections between ritual sacrifice and the cycles of human death and rebirth described in sacred Maya texts."