Two teenagers who were strangled 1,500 years ago as part of an ancient Andean funeral rite were closely related to the adults they were buried with, according to a new genetic study. But surprisingly, it seems that the adolescent boy was sacrificed upon his father's death and the adolescent girl was sacrificed when her aunt died — in a ritual archaeologists have never seen before.
The buried people belonged to the Moche culture, which flourished along the north coast of Peru from A.D. 300 to 950. There is abundant evidence from iconography and archaeology that the Moche practiced human sacrifice to honor their gods, but less information about potential sacrifices made during the funeral of high-status people.
