Elite Maya carried ancestors’ teeth to a cave

New genetic and radiocarbon evidence from Belize suggests some elite Maya deposited hundreds of teeth in Bats’ub cave—far from the tombs where those individuals had been buried—alongside jade, cacao seeds and carved imagery. The findings point to a ritual mean

On the other side of the Maya mountains from the elite tombs of Muklebal Tzul. a cave held what looks like a carefully staged collection: 226 teeth from at least 24 people. arranged near the body of an adult female. Her head had been removed and replaced with part of a vessel containing a single jade bead. Near her pelvis, fragments of cranium—possibly her own—and mandibles without teeth lay beside a large cache of teeth. An inverted bowl containing five cacao seeds sat nearby, along with an orange bowl decorated with a mythical hummingbird-serpent creature.

The story is stranger because the teeth appear to have been taken from places with far more ordinary burial context. At the Maya site of Xunantunich in Belize. and at burial sites spanning the Classic period—roughly AD 250 to 900—researchers found evidence that some important dead were remembered in a location that was 26.5 kilometres away. across difficult terrain.

Esther Brielle and colleagues at Harvard University studied remains from numerous burial sites in Belize from the Classic period. They generated genomic data from hundreds of samples and used radiocarbon dating to reconstruct when each person lived. In total, 341 samples relate to 107 distinct individuals. Among them. 24 individuals had skeletal elements found in two places: in the Plaza Tomb. beneath a house in Muklebal Tzul. and in Bats’ub cave. 26.5 kilometres away.

The genetic analysis indicates that the adult female in the cave was the ancestor of some of the people interred in the elite tombs. The grave goods, the researchers report, imply she was royal.

That link raises a question that feels central to the Maya: why bring teeth—removed from bodies—into the underworld’s “mouth” rather than keeping them with the tomb? The answer may lie in how power was legitimised and how the afterlife was imagined.

During the Classic period. Maya communities across what is now southern Mexico. Guatemala. Belize and northern Honduras were connected by a political and religious system in which lineage and rituals legitimised authority. Death mattered in that system. The living often kept remains of deceased relatives close—under house floors or within walls—suggesting that custody of the body after death was itself part of social life.

Mirko De Tomassi. at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. argues that elite status could be reinforced by connecting oneself to an ancestor. The idea. he says. was that elites “connected themselves either biologically or ideologically to an ancestor to help them legitimise their power.” His reading of the genomic data suggests the practice was not widespread. Only the top level of society in Muklebal Tzul brought teeth to the caves.

The cave, researchers say, may have been sacred because it functioned as an entrance to Xibalba, the Maya underworld. Angelina Locker. at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Tennessee. points to caves as the “mouth” of that world—places where elite individuals might be allowed to communicate with supernatural forces. In her view. teeth placed there were part of a ritual that matched how the Maya conceptualised the body: they divided it into four components. including Ik’. which resides in the mouth and represents the breath of the soul.

Teeth themselves may have mattered for more than symbolism. Asta Rand, at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, suggests that their durability played a role, because they last. But she also stresses that Maya people modified teeth—filing them or embedding jewels—so the material carried cultural weight. She adds another possibility: even though the deposits may have been collected from burials. teeth can fall out or be pulled out during life. leaving open the chance that some were removed while people were still living.

The ritual meaning could also have been tied to ideas of rebirth. Locker argues that teeth were symbolically related to grains of maize and to the concept of renewal. She suggests the teeth may have been “taken… and then plant[ed]” in the mouth of Xibalba so the person could be reincarnated later.

De Tomassi’s evidence also makes the human effort impossible to ignore. Reaching Bats’ub cave would have required a multi-day journey across rugged terrain. he says—something he compares to Maya pilgrimage to the sacred cenote at Chichén Itzá in what is now Mexico. where precious objects were deposited.

Whatever the exact motivation—ancestor veneration. reincarnation. or a political theatre of lineage—the pattern is clear in the physical record. Teeth from elite burials at Muklebal Tzul were brought across distance into a cave space designed for a different kind of afterlife. In that cavern. jade. cacao. and decorated bowls framed what may have been a message sent beyond death—one delivered by the people with the most to gain in the story their society told about who deserved power.

Maya Xunantunich Belize Classic period Xibalba Bats’ub cave teeth ancient DNA radiocarbon dating jade bead cacao seeds Muklebal Tzul Plaza Tomb