Archaeologists make chilling discovery inside 'Blood Cave' used for ancient Mayan rituals

Hundreds of human bones found in an underground cave in Guatemala suggest a chilling human sacrifice took place there.

Cueva de Sangre, or the 'Blood Cave', is located underneath the archaeological site of Dos Pilas in Petén, Guatemala. It's one of more than a dozen caves in this region that were used by the Maya between 400 BC and AD 250.

In the early 1990s, a survey uncovered a large collection of human bones from the Blood Cave, many of which showed evidence of traumatic injuries around the time of death.

Now, a new analysis of the remains determined that the injuries resulted from ritual dismemberment that took place during a sacrifice some 2,000 years ago.

For example, a skull fragment that came from the left side of the forehead bore evidence that someone struck it with a hatchet-like tool, and child's hip bone was found with a similar mark.

What's more, researchers found the bones were scattered across the cave floor and arranged in peculiar, perhaps ritualistic ways.

During the original survey, excavators uncovered a series of four stacked skull caps in one part of the cave.

Ritual artifacts recovered alongside the bones — such as obsidian blades and red ochre, a naturally-occurring rust-colored pigment — provide further evidence that some sort of ceremony took place inside the Blood Cave.

Co-researcher and forensic anthropologist Ellen Frianco told Live Science that the amount of human remains found in the cave, the injuries they bore and the presence of ritual objects point to the fact that this was most likely a sacrificial site.

She and her colleague, bioarchaeologist Michele Bleuze, presented the results of their analysis at the annual Society for American Archaeology meeting in April.

The Blood Cave was first discovered in the 1990s during the Petexbatun Regional Cave Survey, which sought to explore the subterranean structures beneath the ancient Maya city of Dos Pilas.

This particular cave caught excavators' attention because it contained a strikingly large collection of human bones with signs of dismemberment and traumatic injuries.

Interestingly, the Blood Cave can only be accessed through a small opening that descends into a low passageway that leads to a pool of water.

Because of its structure, the cave is flooded for most of the year, and is only accessible during the dry season between March and May.

This would have been true during the time of the Maya too, leading Frianco and Bleuze to believe that the sacrificial remains inside the cave were an offering to the rain god, Chaac.

The Maya commonly performed human sacrifices as a way to appease the gods during times of crisis, such as a drought.

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The researchers note that descendants of the Maya still practice a similar ritual today.

On May 3, or the Day of the Holy Cross, people visit caves to pray for rain and a good harvest at the end of the dry season.

But there is no sacrifice involved in this contemporary celebration.

Though their analysis pointed strong evidence to suggest that the Blood Cave was used for ritualistic human sacrifice, Frianco and Bleuze say there is still more work to be done.

The researchers plan to study the ancient DNA within these bones to learn more about who the deceased were.

They will also perform stable isotope analyses, which can yield information about the diets and migration patterns of the deceased as well as the environmental conditions during the time they were alive.

'Right now, our focus is who are these people deposited here, because they're treated completely differently than the majority of the population,' Bleuze told Live Science.