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Human sacrifice was not incredibly rare, it was widely practiced all over the world going as far back into prehistory as we can see.

• AlotOfReading 5y ago
  It certainly was compared to natural causes and our evidence for particular sacrifice is even more scarce. I've surveyed and excavated many ancient graves, but very few (1, possibly 2) had anything to suggest human sacrifice, both of which were for ideological reasons that don't make sense for Anzick. Quoting Porter's "Mortal Mirrors" from the standard book on archaeology of sacrifice, Sacred Killing: But the evidence for human sacrifice is actually very rare in the period when cross-cultural comparisons suggest it is most likely to occur—the formative stages of complex society—and when it does occur, it is very individual in practice. Dr. Porter goes on to talk about how this is of course the result of our ability to detect and recognize sacrificial activity in the material record and so on. The book is worth perusing if this topic interests you. And of course, in context we should expect it to be essentially irrelevant on a population level because population growth for most of the Paleoindian period is close to flat. A significant difference in infant mortality rates from culturally-specific factors would probably lead to pretty quick population turnover during the millennia of competition with everyone else that has similar technology and resources. So while it did occur, there's little reason to think it occurred at rates anywhere near that of non-sacrificial mortalities.
• mushbino 5y ago