Gomóz Valdás found that about 75% of the skulls examined so far belonged to men, most between the ages of 20 and 35—prime warrior age. But 20% were women, and 5% belonged to children. Most victims seemed to be in relatively good health before they were sacrificed. "If they are war captives, they aren't randomly grabbing the stragglers," Gómez Valdés says. The mix of ages and sexes also supports another Spanish claim, that many victims were slaves sold in the city's markets expressly to be sacrificed.
Chávez Balderas identified a similar distribution of sex and age in her studies of victims in smaller offerings within the Templo Mayor itself, which often contained skulls from the tzompantli that had been decorated and turned into eerie masks. Her colleagues also analyzed isotopes of strontium and oxygen that the teeth and bones had absorbed. The isotopes in teeth reflect the geology of a person's surroundings during childhood, whereas isotopes in bones show where a person lived before death. The results confirmed that the victims were born in various parts of Mesoamerica but had often spent significant time in Tenochtitlan before they were sacrificed. "They aren't foreigners who were brought into the city and directly to the ritual," Chávez Balderas says. "They were assimilated into the society of Tenochtitlan in some way." Barrera Rodríguez says some historical accounts record cases of captive warriors living with the families of their captors for months or years before being sacrificed.
Samples for isotopic analysis as well as ancient DNA studies have already been taken from many of the tzompantli skulls, Gómez Valdés says. He, too, expects to find a diversity of origins, especially because the tzompantli skulls display a variety of intentional dental and cranial modifications, which were practiced by different cultural groups at different times. If so, the skulls could yield information that extends far beyond how the victims died. "Hypothetically, in this tzompantli, you have a sample of the population from all over Mesoamerica," Vázquez Vallín says. "It's unparalleled."
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Chávez Balderas identified a similar distribution of sex and age in her studies of victims in smaller offerings within the Templo Mayor itself, which often contained skulls from the tzompantli that had been decorated and turned into eerie masks. Her colleagues also analyzed isotopes of strontium and oxygen that the teeth and bones had absorbed. The isotopes in teeth reflect the geology of a person's surroundings during childhood, whereas isotopes in bones show where a person lived before death. The results confirmed that the victims were born in various parts of Mesoamerica but had often spent significant time in Tenochtitlan before they were sacrificed. "They aren't foreigners who were brought into the city and directly to the ritual," Chávez Balderas says. "They were assimilated into the society of Tenochtitlan in some way." Barrera Rodríguez says some historical accounts record cases of captive warriors living with the families of their captors for months or years before being sacrificed.
Samples for isotopic analysis as well as ancient DNA studies have already been taken from many of the tzompantli skulls, Gómez Valdés says. He, too, expects to find a diversity of origins, especially because the tzompantli skulls display a variety of intentional dental and cranial modifications, which were practiced by different cultural groups at different times. If so, the skulls could yield information that extends far beyond how the victims died. "Hypothetically, in this tzompantli, you have a sample of the population from all over Mesoamerica," Vázquez Vallín says. "It's unparalleled."
- More Here
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