Performative Violence and Power: Human Sacrifice as a Mechanism to Establish Group Identity and Social Organization in Early Bronze Age China

Human sacrifice was practiced in many Neolithic and Bronze Age societies. This chapter seeks to explore the complex relationships between violence, power and societal organization during the Bronze Age by presenting skeletal evidence of human sacrifice from a cemetery site located in Mogou (磨沟), Lintan County, Gansu Province, China, a site associated with the Qijia material culture complex. Here we present an assessment of the skeletal remains of an adult male with evidence of perimortem sharp force injuries to the upper thoracic region of the spine who was buried in a tomb shaft. The sharp-force injuries present on this individual, as well as the burial location and postmortem treatment, suggest that this individual was likely a victim of human sacrifice. The placement of a sacrificial victim within the tomb shaft suggests that sacrifices were made to honor the deceased buried within the tomb, thus establishing a clear hierarchical relationship between those buried within and those placed outside. This suggests that human sacrifice was employed as a culturally-sanctioned mechanism to establish group identity as well as to create and maintain social organization. The findings of this study advance our understanding of the social structure and ritual practices performed at the Mogou site and pave the way for continuing research on the mortuary traditions within the Qijia cultural horizon.