Cahokia was a large Indian city of located near where St Louis is today. There, the natives practiced ritual human sacrifice in around 950AD.
You can visit the Cahokia Mounds still today
The ritual of sacrifice in Cahokia began with the selection process, where certain individuals, possibly including teenage girls, were chosen for their symbolic significance. These girls, perhaps virgins or of noble lineage, represented purity and fertility, qualities highly valued in ancient sacrificial rites
Over 270 bodies were found, including children and one mass grave with 53 young females, suggesting practices of human sacrifice or mass burial rituals. Some of these bodies showed signs of violent death, like arrowheads embedded in them, indicating that some individuals might have been killed specifically for these burials
Given the position of some fingers digging into the soil, it's suggested that some victims might have been buried alive or suffocated
The lack of widespread blunt force trauma or cut marks on all skeletons might imply other methods like strangulation or poisoning, which wouldn't necessarily leave skeletal evidence
