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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…
Has ritual human sacrifice shaped societies and class systems?
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