Ritual Human Sacrifice Among the Tarascans of West Mexico

This chapter reports on evidence of large-scale ritual violence recovered at Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán, the Postclassic (1300–1522 A.D.) Tarascan civic ceremonial capital. To supply context, background on the Tarascans and the history of archaeological investigations at Tzintzuntzan are presented. Data are then furnished on a cache of human remains excavated in 1992 and 2011 from a large osteological deposit in the northwestern section of the Great Platform at Tzintzuntzan. The cache is comprised mainly of cranial fragments (N = 194, MNI = 40) and long bones, mainly femora. Nineteen of the 194 skull fragments show multiple perimortem cut marks. The pattern of cut marks suggests the process of defleshing the skulls. Finally, ethnohistoric evidence of post-sacrificial body treatments such as human trophy taking is presented and related to the archaeological data. The archaeological evidence recovered at the Great Platform provides a rough estimate of the scale and importance of ritual human sacrifice in Postclassic Tarascan culture.