Over 15 years after it was discovered, Belize’s Midnight Terror Cave still holds clues to more than 100 people who were killed for the Maya rain god more than a millennium back.
Useful for burial The Maya Classic periodLocals named the cave in order to rescue an injured looter (250 to 925 CE).
California State University Los Angeles (Cal State LA), professors and students conducted a three-year excavation. They found over 10,000 bones in the cave. Many of them had evidence of trauma at the time they died.
To get deeper into the last moments of victims, the most recent research didn’t focus on bones but instead looked at their mouths. The researchers examined the calcified plaque, also known as dental calculus. The study was published in September 20th in the International Journal of OsteoarchaeologyAccording to a report, there are at least two victims who have blue fibers stuck to their teeth.
Amy Chan, the study lead author, is now an archaeologist who works in cultural resource management. She began her analysis of the Midnight Terror Cave tooth as a graduate student at Cal State LA. She was interested in the dental health and sanity of the victims. Live Science spoke to her by email.
She stated, “After discovering very few cases of dental pathology, it was my interest to determine what food the victims were eating.”
Related: Hieroglyphics reveal that the Ancient Maya power broker, who died in obscurity, was killed.
Dental calculus can preserve microscopic pieces of food that someone ate – such as pollen grains, starches, and phytoliths, which are mineralized parts of plants – so Chan scraped the gunk off six teeth and sent it to study co-author Linda Scott CummingsPresident and CEO of PaleoResearch Institute in Golden Colorado. Scott Cummings discovered that most of the samples contained cotton fibers, with some being dyed brightly.
Chan stated that it was a surprise to discover blue cotton fibers in the two samples. This is because blue is an important part of Maya ritual.
A unique “Maya blue” pigment has been found at other sites in Mesoamerica, where it seems to have been used in ceremonies – particularly to paint the bodies of sacrificial victims, Chan and colleagues wrote in their research paper.
These blue fibers were also found within an agave-based alcoholic drink at burials at Teotihuacan (an archaeological site in Mexico).
Chan and her team suggested another explanation for the fibers on the teeth. Chan and her team suggested that the victims may have had cotton cloths in the mouths of their victims, possibly as a result of the use gags prior to the sacrifice.
If the victims were kept in custody for a prolonged period of time, their teeth could have contained the blue fibers.
“It is fascinating that they found colored filament in dental calculus.” Gabriel WrobelLive Science received an email from a Michigan State University bioarchaeologist, who said that she was not part of the study.
Although many researchers believe calculus only reflects diet, this study shows that there is so much more to be learned.
Claire EbertLive Science received an email from a University of Pittsburgh environmental archaeologist, who stated that she was skeptical that the blue fibers are derived from gags.
She did however note that dental calculus studies can be useful because they “can also be used to examine other aspects of Maya lives, from ritual to domestic.”
Ebert stated that it would be worth expanding the study to include both elite and non-elite individuals “to see how the pattern can be detected” or “if other explanations for fibers might be more logical.”
Chan and her team agree that Chan’s study, although providing evidence for blue fibers in Maya dental calculus, is not without limitations.
The first is that plaque formation and hardening rate varies depending on food and body physiology. Researchers cannot therefore determine when fibers were trapped.
The team was also limited in their analysis because very few victims of Midnight Terror Cave had any dental calculus.
Researchers wrote that future studies would provide more context to interpret this data.
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This article was first published in Live Science. Learn more Original article here.
