Ancient Korean society practiced human sacrifice and high inbreeding, researchers find [View all]

By Kristina Killgrove
published 18 hours ago

A genomic analysis of dozens of ancient Korean skeletons revealed a special "sacrificial caste" of people.

About 1,500 years ago, entire families were sacrificed to honor local royalty in what is now South Korea, a new genetic study finds. The analysis also reveals a dense kinship system focused on women and their descendants.

In a study published Wednesday (April 8) in the journal Science Advances, an international team of researchers investigated 78 skeletons from the Imdang-Joyeong burial complex in Gyeongsan, located in the southeast region of the Korean Peninsula. The tombs in this cemetery were constructed between the fourth and sixth centuries, during the Three Kingdoms period (circa 57 B.C. to A.D. 668). Historical records suggest that, in the Silla kingdom, people practiced "sunjang," a form of human sacrifice in which servants, or "retainers," were killed and buried with the local elite, and that the society favored "consanguineous" marriage between related individuals.

By analyzing the DNA of 78 skeletons found in the Imdang-Joyeong burial complex, the researchers discovered 11 pairs of people who were first-degree relatives (such as parent and offspring, or siblings) and 23 pairs of people who were second-degree relatives (such as grandparent and grandchild or aunt and niece), suggesting that the Silla society preferred to bury closely related people together.

But the researchers also found five individuals — both royal and nonroyal — whose parents were closely related, including one first-cousin pairing, proving that both the Silla royal elites and the Silla people who were sacrificed to them practiced consanguineous marriage.

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