Human sacrifice? Maybe...

Part one, to which I want to add other stories. This reminds me of a story from the book Strange Survivals, by Sabine Baring-Gould, which I hope to find and bring.
some references to that story and similar others
It's about an excavated Easter Island statue: "The excavation team also found about 800 grams of natural red pigment — nearly two pounds — in the burial hole, along with a human burial." This is from a current UCLA project to excavate a couple of the "heads."



(click image to go to article)

Thor Heyderdahl had already excavated one in the 1950's. This image also came from the article above.