DNA from Inca boy sacrificed 500 years ago shows how humans spread to South America

[icymist]

It sounds like something straight out of a “Hunger Games” novel: The rulers of a sprawling empire select beautiful children from throughout their vast territories and kill them in a ritualistic event to reinforce their power.

During the Inca civilization, which thrived in South America before the arrival of Europeans, these ritual sacrifices were known as capococha. One of the victims was a 7-year-old boy who lived more than 500 years ago. His frozen, mummified remains were discovered at the edge of Argentina’s Aconcagua, the tallest mountain outside of Asia.

Hikers found the mummy in 1985. Now, 30 years later, scientists have sequenced some of the boy’s DNA and used it to learn more about the rise and extent of the Inca Empire. Their findings were published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-inca-mummy-dna-20151112-story.html

[jtuck004]

1. Uh, lol...

"The rulers of a sprawling empire select beautiful children from throughout their vast territories and kill them in a ritualistic event to reinforce their power. "

Food Stamps.
Neighborhood policing
Welfare To Work
Prison
Deadbeats

We got rid of the altars and fuels in a budget cut.

Hunger. Games.

Sorry, back to the dig...

[Igel]

2. Probably more like what some here would like.

The children of the well off sent as a sacrifice, with the rulers literally cutting them open to kill them.

It showed the peons that their local rulers were also subservient to the true and right rulers, gave a small number of people power to control and organize what amounted to a command-and-control economy, and reduced social inequality. If there was something done inappropriate in an area that produced popular unrest, there were no legal niceties to worry about--in order to please the populace, what would be done would be done. (At the same time, if the populace could not be placated, bribed to mind their place, there'd be an armed incursion to restore order.)

This was back when Panchamama was a mean-spirited, nasty, blood thirsty goddess, before she was corrupted from her indigenous purity by syncretism with the Virgin Mary and made more nurturing by the need to appeal to a new generation.

Down in Dravidian linguistic territory in India there was a similar sort of thing. Wealthy families would buy children of the destitute at a very high price. They'd raise them as their own, springing for luxuries and education, etc. Then they'd ritually kill them. It reduced a family's wealth, reduced the economic burden on a poor family and kick started that family's financial well-being.

I read one interpretation of why so many of the temples found in the Levant had jars with children's remains in them buried near their entrances and foundations as sacrifices. In times of great distress, you'd sacrifice your child. This did two things: It reduced the distress and made families more able to flee or survive the troubles, but also provided a way of doing so without resentment (sacrificing to the gods is a good thing for the family and the child, after all).

Societies find ways of dealing with things. Some we of modernity approve of, some we don't.