SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
New evidence of ancient child sacrifice found in Turkey
Remains of young people who were ritually sacrificed have been found from Bronze Age Mesopotamia. Led by Museum scientific associate Dr Brenna Hassett, a team examined burial practices at Başur Höyük, a Bronze Age cemetery in Turkey. It contains a series of individuals who were buried between 3100 and 2800 BCE. The site dates to 500 years before the famous Royal Cemetery of Ur, a luxurious series of tombs that form the resting place of Mesopotamian rulers.
An excavation of Başur Höyük [DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2018.63] [DX] uncovered a large, coffin-like stone tomb that contained multiple burials, with an unprecedented number of high-status grave goods for the period and region.
In three graves were found the remains of at least 11 people, male and female, ranging from age 11 to young adults. Several people were buried outside the tomb with elaborate ornaments and grave goods. Brenna says, 'The burials are remarkable because of the youth of the individuals, the number that were buried and the large wealth of objects that were buried with them.
Also at Live Science and Newsweek.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 01 2018, @06:39PM
Hardly matters. Jews were memorizing the whole bible and a few additional works right up until the 15th century without real relations to most of it. Some of that stuff is similarly old. Australian aboriginals have tales stretching even longer. Chinese ancient scholarship was all about the memorization of works and easily covered 3000 years of legal papers up until the early Qian dynasty despite having written documents... You'd be amazed how much information people retained before the information age. It's not all gone. There Iranian farmers that retain pre-Islamic oral traditions that are only now being recorded. Under different circumstances a Christian priest encounter this would have decorated the tales while adding Christian motifs and teaching the new edition to the kids until it became the local Christian saints and practices. This is exactly what happened in Norway when the Christian invaded. That is, the new Christian traditions weren't just taken from the current religions but from the ones before. Aesir, Vanir and even the previous unnamed pantheon as hinted in the Völuspá. So now you can't even tell what came form where and how it all connects. And Santa is just a part of all of this.
Overall, don't underestimate syncretism. It's all jumbled up and has been that way since for ever. A good hint is tracking proto-indo languages and seeing how it all spreads like wild fire. Ideas follow the same pattern.