The immune gene findings from the 2024 study reflect the biological legacy of this period.

The selective pressure of the post-contact epidemics left detectable signatures in the immune-related genetic variants of the surviving population’s descendants.

The modern Maya people of Tixcacaltuyub carry in their genomes the trace of what their ancestors survived — a biological record of an historical catastrophe that is also documented in the colonial archives.

The Scholarship of Maya Sacrifice: A Complex History

The study of sacrifice in ancient Maya civilization has a complicated scholarly history, shaped both by the evidence itself and by the contexts in which that evidence has been interpreted and communicated.