CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA—According to a Live Science report, bioarchaeologist Sara Juengst of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her colleagues uncovered the 1,200-year-old burial of a woman at the Manteño site of Buen Suceso, which is located near the coast of Ecuador. Examination of the bones revealed that the woman was between the ages of 17 and 20, and between seven and nine months pregnant, at the time of her death. It was also determined that the woman had suffered skull fractures, and that her hands and left leg had been violently removed. The head of another person between the ages of 25 and 35 had been placed near the woman’s shoulder in the burial. Cockle shells had been placed on the woman's eyes, a crab claw had been placed on her abdomen, and ornaments made of Spondylus mollusk shells and three obsidian blades had been placed around her body. Some of the mollusk shell ornaments were found to be 2,000 years older than the burial itself. Dating of a burnt item found on her chest suggests that it was an offering put in the grave several hundred years later. Juengst and her colleagues think that the woman may have been sacrificed during an El Niño event due to her fertility, noting that artifacts included in the burial may have been chosen to evoke watery environments. Her death could also have been politically motivated, however. “If a rival of this woman wanted to take over, they would need to eliminate her and her unborn offspring, but also still give her honor based on her status,” Juengst explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Latin American Antiquity. To read about unusual infant burials along Ecuador's coast, go to "Protecting the Young."
