Ancient Mexican Child Devotion Linked to Elite Inbreeding

The parents of the pre-contact sacrificial child in Mexico were probably close relatives. Like, indeed close relatives. It sounds like something is coming out Game of Thrones (RIP Princess Shireen Baratheon), but DNA analysis shows that it happened at least once in the Mexican community he had contact with.

Paquimé is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mexican state of Chihuahua known for its archaeological wealth. The site was inhabited for over 700 years by members of the Mogollon culture, but was abandoned for unknown reasons in the mid-15th century.

Human remains found in burial sites point to Paquimé’s position. Other remains were found in the lower layers, surrounded by artifacts such as hand drums and pottery. Some, in high-rise buildings, showed signs of illness, and possibly even partial cannibalism.

Among the bodies found in the area of ​​the nobles are the remains of a male child, who was between two and five years old at the time of his death. A 1974 study concluded that the shape of the body suggests that it may have been sacrificed in a ritual to consecrate a new building.

Now, in order to better understand Paquimé’s social status, a team of scientists decided to analyze the boy’s DNA. In the resulting study published in the journal Antiquitiesthe researchers reported that they found a high number of identical genes and alleles, which means that the child has parents “who were more closely related than first cousins,” said Jakob Sedig, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard who led the study, in a press release.

“These results provide a unique insight into social management and social and religious practices in Paquimé,” he added. “The next steps in this research are to continue analyzing the ancient DNA of people from Paquimé and northern and western Mexico to help us understand how different groups moved and mixed over time.”

Anthropologists believe that the House of the Well, where the boy’s body was found, was a burial place reserved for the local nobility. He was probably a descendant of his high-class siblings or other very close relatives. Because he was born to two members of a local noble family, their sacrifice “would have been a powerful way to sanctify the House of Source and increase its social, political and ritual status,” the scientists wrote.

They added that the findings suggest that taboos against kinship, while enforced on ordinary people, may be ignored by privileged people who want to consolidate power (for The House of the Beast viewers, think Aegon and Helaena). This practice of close unions among the elite shows that the pursuit of power can sometimes override social values.