Five millennia ago, Bronze Age people in Mesopotamia built elaborate stone tombs full of spectacular grave goods and human sacrifices. Researchers are unsure of the meaning of this ritual, but a new study of the skeletons points to a clue: the age at which people were sacrificed and their biological sex.
"The fact that they are mostly adolescents is fascinating and surprising," David Wengrow, a professor of comparative archaeology at University College London, told Live Science. "It highlights how little thought scientists and historians have really given to the importance of adolescence as a crucial stage in the human life cycle."
