Skulls found in Guatemala ‘blood cave’ likely sacrificed to rain god in brutal Mayan ritual

Archaeologists have uncovered fragmented skulls from a Guatemalan cave where people were sacrificed in a brutal Maya ritual to appease the rain god.

The Cueva de Sangre, or "blood cave", was first discovered in the 1990s during a survey of the archaeological site in Petén.

Bones bearing marks of traumatic injury were found scattered on the floor, but they weren’t well studied until recently.

Now, researchers have presented evidence showing the cave was used by the Maya people for ritual human sacrifice some two millennia ago.

Researchers, including Michele Bleuze from California State University, found signs of the bones having been subject to ritual dismemberment.

One skull fragment, for instance, bore a mark on one side indicating it was struck by a tool like a hatchet. A similar mark on an infant’s hip bone was likely made around the time of death.

That the bones were scattered on the floor and not buried, with some arranged in a strange way, further indicated their use in a ritual, researchers said.

Moreover, archaeologists found items known to have been used in rituals, such as obsidian blades and red ochre, in the cave.

In all, the cave site contained “more than 100 adult and juvenile human bone fragments”.

“Deposition of human remains within subterranean spaces held a special cultural significance across Mesoamerica because of the importance of the sacred, animate Earth in Amerindian Indigenous cosmology,” researchers wrote.

Given the brutal nature of the injuries on the bones and their high density in the cave, researchers concluded that the Cueva de Sangreit was a site of Mayan ritual human sacrifice sometime between 400BC and 250AD.

“The types of skeletal elements present, trauma, arrangement of bones, and bone modifications strongly support the sacrificial nature of the deposition,” they wrote.

The cave can be reached via a small opening that descends into a passageway opening into a pool of water. For ancient Maya, it was likely open only during the dry season from March to May after which the rains would have rendered it inaccessible.

Researchers said the brutal human sacrifice rituals were likely intended to appease the Mayan rain god Chaac, but further studies, including DNA analysis of the bones, were needed to better understand the nature of such practices.

Future research, they said, could also shed more light on life in Central America before the Spanish conquest.