Elizabeth Lunday’s “Extra Toes Conferred Extra Status” (American Archaeology, fall 2016, print only) teaches me a little something about social prestige:
“Six-toed individuals [in Chaco Canyon] seem to have been treated well, but not as gods,” [University of New Mexico archaeologist] Crown says. The team recently published a paper in the journal American Antiquity.
The Maya revered individuals with extra digits, treating them as gods. Crown and her colleagues wondred if the Chacoans did the same. … High status could account for the high rate of polydactyly among the population. “If you have a trait people value, that can lead to greater reproductive success and the trait may appear more often,” says Crown.
So we’d ignore or remove an extra toe. The Mayans and Chacoans would revere them. Sort of like winning the lottery, but not really.
