Ancient human sacrifice in China likely served to reinforce social hierarchies

Human sacrifice has played a gruesome but important role in ancient history, and thousands of years ago, in ancient China, it probably was used as a tool to solidify social hierarchies.

A team of scientists recently analysed a bronze-age tomb from the Qijia culture (2200BC-1600BC) located in Gansu province in northwest China, and theorised that human sacrifice had become a “culturally sanctioned mechanism” to establish group identity.

In their study published in late June in the book The Poetics of Violence in Afroeurasian Bioarchaeology, the team theorised that the person may have been sacrificed to honour the tomb’s inhabitants, suggesting the occupants were considered of higher social value than the victim.

Jenna Dittmar, a study author and assistant professor of Anatomical Sciences at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in the US, told the Post that this research helps scientists learn more about the social conditions under which sacrifice was performed and how it evolved over time.

“An important point that is highlighted in this research is that, even though the practice of human sacrifice was quite widespread throughout the prehistoric world, the reasons why people were sacrificed were highly variable,” she said.

While the scientists cannot be completely sure why the person was sacrificed, his body was treated poorly, with his limbs being purposely separated. He also was not buried with items, like pots, for the afterlife, suggesting “he was of a lower status in a symbolic hierarchy than the people buried properly inside the tomb”.

Another study author, Elizabeth Berger, from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, told the Post that the victim could have been an enemy or “some other outsider”.

“Or, if he was from the same society as the other tomb occupants, maybe he was a criminal or had lost his social standing for some other reason,” she said.