Hundreds of human teeth were left in Bats’ub Cave in southern Belize over more than two centuries, and genetic analysis now ties them to Maya elite families buried miles away. More than 200 teeth were recovered, and the DNA shows they came from at least 30 people. The cave holds the burial of a woman from about A.D. 250 to 400, and her grave appears to have become a shrine.
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Her head had been removed and replaced by a ceramic bowl holding a jade bead.
A headless burial and the first tooth
Keith Prufer of the University of New Mexico led the team that recovered the teeth from the woman’s burial, according to Archaeology magazine’s report. A similar scene appears on a bowl left in the grave, and radiocarbon dating shows the first human tooth was placed there more than 100 years after she was buried. People kept adding teeth for more than 200 years afterward. The magazine’s account, published November 3, 2026, summarizes a report in Science and names no direct quotations from the researchers.
A syndicated summary of the study on Newswav adds that five cacao seeds lay near her pelvis, along with toothless mandibles, loose teeth and a vessel holding a single jade bead where her head would have been. Genome analysis showed the woman was a fourth-degree ancestor of one of the lineages buried in the Plaza Tomb at Muklebal Tsul, which would make the cave burial a family matter rather than a stranger’s grave.
Genetic matching to tombs 16 miles away
The genetic work was done by David Reich and Esther Brielle of Harvard University. They found the teeth came from at least 30 individuals, and more than 20 of those people were buried in elite family tombs at Muklebal Tsul, about 16 miles away over rough terrain. The bioRxiv preprint behind the finding, posted June 10, 2026 and not yet peer reviewed, screened 487 tooth and bone samples, generated genome-wide data for 430, and traced 24 individuals with skeletal elements in both an elite tomb and the distant tooth cache, 26.5 kilometers apart on opposite sides of the Maya Mountains.
Counts vary by outlet. Gizmodo’s coverage of the presentation to the Society for American Archaeology puts the tally at 226 teeth from at least 39 individuals, and reports that the team reconstructed three lineages spanning four, six and eight generations from 24 people with scattered remains. The published floor of 30 people and the larger figure are consistent, since both are minimums.
The sample base is large. Of the 487 samples screened, 341 came from elite and non-elite tombs and represented 107 distinct individuals. The preprint’s authors, a team of 37 that includes Reich and Prufer, argue that elite lineages created ancestors from deceased relatives across a wide geographic area.
Differences in how outlets describe the cave tally come down to what each counts: teeth recovered, individuals identified from them, and individuals who also appear in tombs. Archaeology magazine’s wording, more than 200 teeth from at least 30 people with more than 20 matched to Muklebal Tsul, is the most conservative of the three framings.
Women who married into male lines
Archaeology magazine notes that the genetic study found women married into male family lines in Maya society, a pattern read from who was buried with whom. It adds a practical point: ancestor veneration scattered remains, which makes bodies hard to identify without DNA. Alexandre Tokovinine of the University of Alabama, who was not involved, told Gizmodo that DNA is not a magic bullet but that it is nice to have an extra data set.
Context from the preprint’s abstract frames why lineage mattered. Classic Maya society, about A.D. 250 to 900, relied on kinship and claimed descent from mythical ancestors to legitimize rulers, and the authors say ancestor veneration produced disarticulated remains that are hard to identify without genetic data. The cave teeth, in that reading, are evidence of a ritual that spread an ancestor’s body across two places.
Why elites crossed the mountains to leave teeth
Researchers suggest Maya elites from Muklebal Tsul traveled to the woman’s grave and left teeth from dead relatives or perhaps their own extracted teeth. The Gizmodo report adds that the arrangement may recreate an underworld scene from Maya creation mythology and that caves served as thresholds where elites communicated with ancestral forces. For readers wanting the wider landscape, the magazine’s Off the Grid feature on Xunantunich covers another Belize site.
The unresolved piece is the paper itself. The preprint is not peer reviewed, the magazine page gives no tooth count of its own, and the exact figure of individuals may shift as reviewers press on the genetics.
Distance is the argument. Many caves lay closer to Muklebal Tsul, and the researchers say that choosing Bats’ub, which required a multi-day trek over rugged terrain, suggests the cave carried special religious and political meaning. Caves were seen as entrances to the underworld and dwelling places of ancestors, and the team concludes that the site may have let the tomb’s elites position their ancestors, and themselves, as mediators with supernatural forces, a portal to the underworld.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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