DNA Analysis Hints at “Elite Family’s Ritual” in Mexico

CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO—DNA analysis of human remains unearthed in the twentieth century in northwestern Mexico at the Mogollon culture site of Paquimé, or Casas Grandes, suggests that the individual’s parents had been closely related, according to a Newsweek report. The study of the bones, led by Jakob Sedig of Harvard University, determined that the boy had lived locally, and was between the ages of two and five at the time of death, which occurred between A.D. 1301 and 1397. Discovered beneath a roof support beam, the child was thought to have been a member of an elite family who was sacrificed to consecrate the construction of a ceremonial structure known as the House of the Well. But the close relationship between his parents was a surprise, Sedig explained. “The data suggests his parents weren’t as closely related as siblings but were more closely related than first cousins,” he said. An elite family is now thought to have used the sacrifice to consolidate and legitimize their social standing. “There were other sacrificial victims at the site (in a building called the House of the Dead) who were not treated nearly as well as the child in our study,” Sedig added. “So it seems to us that there was something special, unique, and/or important about [this] child sacrifice,” he concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read more about Paquimé, go to "Letter from Chihuahua: Cliff Dwellers of the Sierra Madre."