These so-called “costly ritual behaviors”–and the traces they leave in the archaeological and historical records–are therefore worthy subjects of scientific inquiry that require explanations derived from a unified theoretical framework. Sociologists and anthropologists have long made similar arguments that intense rituals enhance social cohesion and promote cooperation for human society –. Ritual acts of blood sacrifice are dominant themes in Pre-Columbian art and archaeology, and are an essential topic for understanding the development of early complex societies in Mesoamerica, as Arthur Demarest suggested over 30 years ago. Our results indicate that bloodletting rituals by Maya nobles were not uniformly recorded, but were typically documented in association with antagonistic statements and may have signaled royal commitments among connected polities. Conversely, network ties better capture the distribution of bloodletting rituals across the southern Maya region. We show that documented rituals exhibit low frequency whose occurrence cannot be predicted by spatial location. Sampling an extensive record of 2,480 hieroglyphic texts, this study identifies every recorded instance of the logographic sign for the word ch’ahb’ that is associated with ritual bloodletting. We also identify the sociopolitical contexts most closely associated with these ancient recorded rituals. Here, we report the first study to analyze temporal and spatial variation in bloodletting rituals recorded in Classic Maya (ca. Yet few studies have investigated how such extreme ritual practices were culturally transmitted in past societies. Religious rituals that are painful or highly stressful are hypothesized to be costly signs of commitment essential for the evolution of complex society.
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