Editing Human sacrifice (section)

====Slavic peoples====
{{Main|Slavic paganism}}
In the 10th century, Persian explorer [[Ahmad ibn Rustah]] described funerary rites for the [[Rus' people|Rus']] (Scandinavian [[Norsemen]] traders in northeastern Europe) including the sacrifice of a young female slave.<ref name="Early Slavs, p.120">{{cite book |first=Paul M. |last=Barford |year=2001 |title=The Early Slavs: Culture and society in early medieval Eastern Europe |page=120 |publisher=Cornell University Press |access-date=3 February 2014 |isbn=0-8014-3977-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Z9ItAtbJ5AC&q=sacrifice&pg=PA120}}</ref> [[Leo the Deacon]] describes prisoner sacrifice by the Rus' led by [[Sviatoslav I of Kiev|Sviatoslav]] during the [[Rus'-Byzantine War (968-971)|Russo-Byzantine War]] "in accordance with their ancestral custom."<ref>{{cite book |title=The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century |first1=Alice-Mary |last1=Talbot |author-link=Alice-Mary Talbot |first2=Denis F. |last2=Sullivan |isbn=978-0-88402-324-1 |year=2005 |publisher=Dumbarton Oaks |access-date=3 February 2014 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RCDsV41k8A0C&q=sacrifice&pg=PA193}}</ref>

According to the 12th-century [[Primary Chronicle]], prisoners of war were sacrificed to the supreme Slavic deity [[Perun]]. Sacrifices to pagan gods, along with paganism itself, were banned after the [[Christianization of Kievan Rus'|Christianization of Rus']] by Grand Prince [[Vladimir the Great]] in the 980s.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=''Lavrentevskaia Letopis'', also called the ''Povest Vremennykh Let'' |encyclopedia=Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei (PSRL) |volume=1 |at=col. 102}}</ref>

In 1066, the Bishop of Mecklenburg [[John Scotus (bishop of Mecklenburg)|John Scotus]] was sacrificed to [[Radegast (god)|Radegast]] in [[Rethra]] by the Slavic [[Lutici]].

Archeological findings indicate that the practice may have been widespread, at least among slaves, judging from mass graves containing the cremated fragments of a number of different people.<ref name="Early Slavs, p.120" />