New Scientist
Image: Ilhuicamina
Are modern societies built on bloody foundations? That is the suggestion of new research into traditional Austronesian cultures.
Ritual human sacrifice seems to be key to the emergence of inherited class systems: powerful members of society carried out these killings to control, terrorise and impress the lower ranks.
So say Joseph Watts and Russell Gray at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and their colleagues, who browsed ethnographic data for evidence of ritual killing in 93 traditional Austronesian cultures.
Other researchers take issue with their methodology and conclusions.
Ritual human sacrifice – the taking of human life for religious purposes – used to be widespread. For instance, it was a feature of many Austronesian language cultures, which exist in a broad equatorial region stretching from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island in the east.
Watts and Gray’s team looked at whether or not human sacrifice existed in these cultures in the past. They also noted whether each culture has an egalitarian social structure, an aspirational hierarchical structure — where individuals have some hope of raising their social status, or an inherited class system where social status is more or less decided at birth. Read more on newscientist.com…
