Sara Juengst on the discovery of 1,200-year-old remains of a pregnant woman in Ecuador

Sara Juengst, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, was interviewed by Live Science to discuss the discovery of the 1,200-year-old remains of a dismembered pregnant woman in Ecuador, who may have been sacrificed to thwart El Niño.

Juengst was one of the archaeologists excavating at Buen Suceso who discovered the burial of the woman among six other burial sites. In a study published January 23, 2025 in Latin American Antiquity, Juengst and colleagues detailed the burial made during the Manteño period in Ecuador, lasting from 650 to 1532.

Although human sacrifices were rare in the area, the woman appears to have died from a blow to the head, and the majority of her limbs were violently removed. The woman was buried with an elaborate array of artifacts, many of which were linked to water, including valuable mollusk shell artifacts. 

As the woman died during a period of intense El Niño events, she may have been sacrificed due to her fertility in an attempt to combat low crop yields. Another possible scenario is that the woman was killed for political or social motives, as women could hold political and social power in Manteño society.

“The fact that it was a woman who was pregnant might indicate that women held important positions of power, and thus their power needed to be ‘managed,'” Juengst told Live Science. “If a rival of this woman wanted to take over, they would need to eliminate her and her unborn offspring, but also still give her honor based on her status.”

Read the Live Science article.

Read the journal article, ‘An Enigmatic Manteño Burial from Buen Suceso, Ecuador, AD 771–953.’