The finding that all 64 analyzed children were male suggests that the individuals deposited in this chultún were selected, at least in part, on the basis of sex.

This is not guaranteed by the evidence — in any sample, it is possible to draw all-male results by chance, particularly if the sample size is not extremely large.

But the probability of drawing 64 male individuals from a genuinely sex-balanced population is vanishingly small.

The result is consistent with deliberate selection.

If the children were selected for being male, this raises questions about what that selection criteria meant within the specific ritual context of Chichén Itzá.

The Sacred Cenote, Chichén Itzá’s most famous location of ritual deposition, has produced human remains with a different demographic profile — adults and children, males and females — suggesting that different ritual contexts at the same site operated with different selection criteria.