Most of the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

 such as the Olmec

Olmec

The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....

, Maya

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

, Mixtec, Zapotec

Zapotec civilization

The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...

 and Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

 cultures practised some kind of taking of human trophies during warfare. Captives taken during war would often be taken to their captors' city-states where they would be ritually tortured and sacrificed. These practices are documented by a rich material of iconographic and archaeological evidence from across Mesoamerica.

In ancient Maya culture

Evidence of the ritualistic sacrifice and taking human body parts as trophies in Maya civilization

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

 exists from as far back as the Middle Formative

Mesoamerican chronology

Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...

 period (800 – 500 BC). The evidence consists of skeletal remains and depictions in Maya iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

, commonly showing acts of human sacrifice. Excavations at the non-Maya site of Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

 have unearthed the remains of hundreds of bodies that are thought to represent a mass sacrifice at the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. At the Temple of the Moon

Temple of the Moon

The Temple of the Moon is an Incan ceremonial temple on Huayna Picchu near Machu Picchu, in Peru. The site is made up of stone masonry and an open-face, shallow cave. The temple is arbitrarily named, like many of the sites in Machu Picchu....

, another excavation site, there were a number of decapitated remains found along with numerous bound

Bound

Bound may refer to:*Upper and lower bounds, observed limits of mathematical functions*Terms or bounds, segments of each astrological sign that are said to have different ruling planets*Bound state, in physics*Bounds checking, in computer programming...

 bodies of headless males. Given these two examples of mass sacrificial sites, there is no reason why this couldn't have taken place in Maya society.

With that in mind, there are other possible explanations that are commonly used among the Maya. It is not unreasonable to think that some of these sites are examples of ancestral veneration

Veneration

Veneration , or veneration of saints, is a special act of honoring a saint: an angel, or a dead person who has been identified by a church committee as singular in the traditions of the religion. It is practiced by the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic, and Eastern Catholic Churches...

. This was a selective social practice in which ancestors were considered a
subset of all the deceased and were the ones who validated political power, status and access to resources. There is also proof that the mortuary practices of the region were varied and once thought to be evidence of human sacrifice. They were commonly found in locations of tomb reuse and secondary burial practice.

It is believed for the most part, that the soldiers didn’t patrol in large armies; rather there were many smaller groups or raiding parties. Most of these battles were driven by the desire for domination and the intention to intimidate other cities. During this time it was not uncommon that the victors of a battle would take captives back to their cities and use them for ritual sacrifice. In some instances they would bind or hinder the captive so that he could not fairly compete in a winner-take-all ballcourt match. Herein, the loser would be beheaded and the victor would, in certain situations, keep his head as a trophy and confirm victory in order to establish his city's dominance.

In the Popul Vuh, the vision of human sacrifice and decapitation is abundantly clear and emphasized. However, in instances of decapitation, the sacrifice was intended to signify rebirth and creation. This theme is confirmed when the Hero Twins played the Lords of Death in a ball game match and ended up tricking the Lords of Death into decapitating themselves. With the Lords of Death out of the picture, the Hero Twins were able to resurrect their father, the Maize God. This shows the significance of sacrifice and decapitation in warfare as a means to reenact rebirth, in the Popul Vuh.

Maya art

Maya art

Maya art

Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya civilization, that took shape in the course the Preclassic period , and grew greater during the Classic period Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya...

 and iconography is a major source to anthropologists knowledge and beliefs about the culture and history of the Maya. For instance, at the site of Bonampak

Bonampak

Bonampak is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The site is approximately south of the larger site of Yaxchilan, under which Bonampak was a dependency, and the border with Guatemala...

, photographer Giles Healy discovered exquisite murals showing a battle and its aftermath, including the torture of captives. Other examples of Maya art depicting sacrifice and torture include: carved stone stelae, altars, and panels. There is evidence that this type of art was recorded on wood and other perishable media, but they have eroded with time.

Iconographic depictions of trophy heads tend to show the heads being suspended in mid-air, held by the hair, or even upside down. In addition they depict blood or possibly other fluids flowing from the neck, eyes or mouth. Holding a head by the hair is seen as a sign of disrespect. In Maya iconography, these heads are usually fastened upright with the eyes opened and are worn on a belt that is positioned on the small of the wearers back. The actual act of decapitation in the iconography is rare, but does appear from time to time. The most common place to see the decapitation of human heads being worn or presented as trophy heads are on painted cylinder vases of the Late Classic period and usually involve the Hero Twins or some type of Creation myth.

Los Mangales (Early Preclassic)

Los Mangales lies within the Salama Valley

Salamá River

The Salamá River is a river in Guatemala. The river is fed by a number of streams running down the slopes of the Sierra de las Minas and Sierra de Chuacús and flows in a north-westerly direction through the town of Salamá until it joins the Chixoy River....

 in the Northern Highlands of Guatemala. It has been estimated that this site was active from approximately 1000-400 BC and was the site of vast, elaborate burials. Three principal mounds entail the main composition of the site, (Str. D6-1) containing varied amounts of adult male crania that have been interpreted as trophy heads or possibly dismembered sacrificial retainers. In addition to the three principle burial mounds, there were multiple burial sites. In particular at burial site 6, there was conclusive evidence of human sacrifice, where were located at least 12 dismembered victims and three possible trophy heads. The heads were found lying inside the crypt with specific individuals. A common trend at this site is that the victims found outside the formal crypt were lying in the prone position

Prone position

The term means to lie on bed or ground in a position with chest downwards and back upwards.-Etymology :The word "prone," meaning "naturally inclined to something, apt, liable," has been recorded in English since 1382; the meaning "lying face-down" was first recorded in 1578, but is also referred to...

 (their wrists and ankles were bound tightly together and that they were faced down) and the individuals that were inside the crypt were in the supine position

Supine position

The supine position is a position of the body: lying down with the face up, as opposed to the prone position, which is face down, sometimes with the hands behind the head or neck. When used in surgical procedures, it allows access to the peritoneal, thoracic and pericardial regions; as well as the...

 (face up and unbound). However, finding a body in the prone position does not necessarily mean that the individual was a victim of sacrifice. It is believed that finding isolated crania were seen as early evidence of trophy taking in the Maya region.

Chalchuapa (Preclassic)

Evidence of sacrifice and trophy taking was found at an evacuation site in El Chalchuapa

Chalchuapa

Chalchuapa is a town and a municipality located in the Santa Ana department of El Salvador. The city of Chalchuapa is in a wide valley at 650 meters above sea level, and watered by the Pampe River.- Overview :...

 , El Salvador. The remains of 33 individuals were found and had appeared to have been victims of ritual sacrifice that had spanned five different episodes of construction to the structure. Many of the individuals were found to be male and most were lying in the prone position. Of the individuals found it was noted that they were represented as crania and were determined to have been trophy heads. The others had a range of signs of mutilation, including: one individual was missing his/her head, two were cut in half at the waist, one individual was missing his/her legs and another was missing his/her feet. Given the age of the individuals, the absence of grave goods, the positions and placement of the bodies, the lack of grave preparation and the evidence for dismemberment, this site seems to show that these individuals were war captives and then used in a form of ritualistic sacrifice.

Cuello, Belize ( Late Preclassic)

Cuello

Cuello

Cuello is a Maya archaeological site in northern Belize. The site is that of a farming village with a long occupational history stretching back to approximately 1200 BC, during the Middle Preclassic period. Its inhabitants lived in pole-and-thatch houses that were built on top of low plaster-coated...

 is a site that provides several examples of decapitation, dismemberment, and sacrifice of young to middle-aged males at public events. Here we see evidence of the sacrifice of children, one of whom appeared to have been decapitated demonstrating the incidence of decapitated individuals in common grounds and public structures. In most mass burials there seem to be primary individuals in the center, surrounded by the remains of others.

Colha, Belize (Terminal Classic)

In Colha, Belize

Colha, Belize

Colha, Belize is a Maya archaeological site located in northern portion of the country, about 52 km. north of Belize City, near the city of Orange Walk. The site is one of the earliest in the Maya region and remains important to the archaeological record of the Maya culture well into the...

, archaeologists discovered a large pit next to a stairway near the center of a monumental structure (operation 2010). This "Skull Pit" contained the heads of around 30 individuals. Ten of these were children ranging in age from 6 months to 6 or 7 years old. The remaining 20 individuals were adults. There were cut marks on the crania and the remains were burnt, and the age grouping and the location of the pit has led to multiple conclusions on the reasons behind these sacrifices. One theory is that they were sacrificed as a part of a religious ceremony. Other hypotheses are that the victims were political prisoners treated with ritual violence or that they were ancestors of an elite lineage that was violently deposed.

Teotihuacan (Feathered Serpent Pyramid)

At this excavation site in Mexico, archaeologists found roughly 72 males. Due to the evidence surrounding them they were determined to be soldiers. The individuals were placed in a series of highly structured graves that were below, and just outside, the pyramid. From the other evidence unearthed, it was found that each individual had between 7 and 11 human maxillae, or human jaw bones, in his possession. These maxillae were mostly worn around the arm, generally on the biceps of soldiers. This was seen as a testament of strength and power that proved that these individuals had been in multiple battles or campaigns. Along with the maxillae, the men had necklaces made of teeth, obsidian projectile points and slate disks located behind their lower back, which were commonly found on Teotihuacan military figures. This led the excavators to believe that these soldiers were of an elite class of warrior, and not just some semi-organized militia.

Along with the remains of apparent soldiers, there were also remains found of other males with rich offerings that would suggest they were members of higher social status. This evidence proved that even at an early stage of Teotihuacan’s existence there was large scale human sacrifice as well as warfare-related symbolism.