Male human heads found in a 'skull pit' in an ancient Chinese city hint at sex-specific sacrifice rituals

1. Archaeology

Male human heads found in a 'skull pit' in an ancient Chinese city hint at sex-specific sacrifice rituals News By Kristina Killgrove published 4 December 2025

A genetic study of 80 skulls found at a Stone Age city in China has revealed that the sacrificed people were mostly men, in contrast to previous assumptions.

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An ancient carved stone at the site of Shimao in China. (Image credit: IVPP/CAS)

Just outside the gate of a 4,000-year-old city in China, archaeologists found a pit full of 80 skulls from human sacrifice victims. Now, a new study has revealed a surprising fact about the victims: Nine out of 10 were men.

In the study, published Nov. 26 in the journal Nature, researchers analyzed DNA collected from skeletons found in the ancient city of Shimao and its satellite towns to figure out the social and kinship structure of this Neolithic society.

The ancient stone-walled city of Shimao was first discovered in Shaanxi province in 2018. Occupied between about 2300 and 1800 B.C., Shimao was roughly 1.5 square miles (4 square kilometers). The city featured a large step pyramid, craft specialization areas and two cemeteries.

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An elite burial at the Zhaishan site in China, showing a male tomb occupant and a female sacrificed victim. (Image credit: IVPP/CAS)

Archaeologists also found two different forms of human sacrifice: one involving the heads of decapitated individuals, buried in "skull pits" near the city gate; and another involving the entombing of a lower-status individual — usually a female — as a sacrifice in a higher-status person's burial.

In the new study, the researchers used DNA analysis to figure out the biological sex of the skulls in the pit discovered beneath the foundation of Shimao's Dongmen (East Gate).

"In contrast to previous archaeological reports that identified these sacrifices as female-based," the researchers wrote in the study, the new DNA results "showed no evidence of female bias, with 9 out of 10 victims being men."

This finding surprised archaeologists, because the sacrifices associated with the elite burials at Shimao and its satellite towns were predominantly female.

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"These patterns of mostly female sacrifices starkly contrast with Dongmen, in which decapitation and mass burial involved mostly sampled men," the researchers wrote. "This suggests Shimao's sacrificial practices were highly structured, with gender-specific roles tied to distinct ritual purposes and locations," according to a statement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Additionally, when the researchers looked at the sacrificed men's DNA, they found no differences in their ancestry compared to the ancestry of the elite tomb occupants, meaning the sacrificial victims were not "outsiders."

Although the reason for the sex-specific sacrifice customs is still unclear, researchers have offered some possible explanations.

The cemetery-based sacrifices "may represent ancestor veneration, in which women were sacrificed to honour elite nobles or rulers," according to the researchers, while the sacrificed skulls in the pit "were probably connected to a construction ritual of the walls or gate."

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TOPICS anthropology China Kristina KillgroveSocial Links NavigationStaff writer

Kristina Killgrove is a staff writer at Live Science with a focus on archaeology and paleoanthropology news. Her articles have also appeared in venues such as Forbes, Smithsonian, and Mental Floss. Kristina holds a Ph.D. in biological anthropology and an M.A. in classical archaeology from the University of North Carolina, as well as a B.A. in Latin from the University of Virginia, and she was formerly a university professor and researcher. She has received awards from the Society for American Archaeology and the American Anthropological Association for her science writing.

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