Now Math Can Be Used to Calculate Benefits of Sacrificing Human Lives

By Kanika Gupta - 05 Apr '16 10:11AM

A statistical analysis tool published by a group of social scientists in Nature reveals how this dreadful tradition can be justly predicted and benefit the rich in stratified societies.

93 Austronesian cultures in the Pacific Islands were analyzed by these scientists. The information was acquired from Pulotu Database of Pacific Religions to identify the groups that went through human sacrifice and when. According to previous analysts, human sacrifice helps in maintaining social stratification. Through this study, the researchers wanted to gain understanding of the relationship between social stratification and its association with human sacrifice over a period of time.

For that purpose, a statistical model was created using Bayesian methods that tested the affects of human sacrifice on societies based on three buckets - egalitarian, moderately stratified and highly stratified.

The researchers suggest that human sacrifice was prevalent in 40 of 93 cultures examined, that is 43%. Human sacrifice also existed in 5 of 20 egalitarian societies (25%) and 17 of 46 moderately stratified societies (37%). The highest number of cultural human sacrificed happened in highly stratified societies, 18 of 27, amounting to 67%.

When the researchers tested these societies against different probabilistic models, they realized that human sacrifice played a pivotal role in changing societies and cultures over time.

They found that the human sacrifice helped highly stratified societies to maintain stability and convert a moderately stratified society into high-stratified. However, the egalitarian society that inducted human sacrifice into the culture did not become stratified.

The researchers say that human sacrifice is a useful tool for the top strata of the society to wield their power on a stratified society.

The researchers conclude in their paper that their study findings suggest that through ritual killings, egalitarian societies transitioned to stratified complex societies we live in today.