Decapitated Skeletons Show Ancient Chinese Kept Prisoners Of War As Slaves
By Elana Glowatz @ElanaGlow On 06/19/17 AT 12:24 PM
Many of the people sacrificed in ritual killings more than 3,000 years ago in China were enslaved prisoners of war, archaeologists say.
Their skeletons, buried at the ancient Yinxu archaeological site, tell a story of victims in a foreign land who survived at least a few years before being killed. Scientists studied the composition of their bones to reconstruct their diets, a study in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology said, to determine their origin. That involved looking at the elements present in the bones of 68 human sacrifices — rather than their teeth because they had been decapitated — and comparing them to the remains of a few dozen locals from the same ancient place. The results suggest the victims “moved to Yinxu and adopted the local diet for at least a few years before being killed.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/decapitated-skeletons-show-ancient-chinese-kept-prisoners-war-slaves-2554222
