In 2012, the authorities in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas entered a darkish cave and confronted a ghastly website: about 150 skulls sprawled throughout the floor, all with lacking tooth and shattered bits of bone.
The police began an investigation, believing it was against the law scene of migrants killed close to the border with Guatemala, the place gang violence is commonplace.
Indeed, it was against the law scene. Just not one which occurred just lately.
Last week, 10 years after the discovery, the authorities mentioned in an announcement that that they had decided the skulls have been from sacrificial killings between A.D. 900 and 1200.
“We have already learned a lot of information,” Javier Montes de Paz, an archaeologist who analyzed the bones, mentioned in a information convention on April 11. “But it’s also important to note: What were those craniums doing in that cave?”
Researchers at the National Institute of Anthropology and History analyzed marks on the bones and decided that the deaths had occurred centuries in the past. Such marks would seem solely after “a lot, a lot of time” had handed, Mr. Montes de Paz mentioned.
The researchers discovered that the victims had been beheaded, that almost all of the bones have been from feminine victims, and that every one have been lacking tooth, although it was unclear if that they had been extracted earlier than or after loss of life, Mr. Montes de Paz mentioned.
The researchers additionally discovered the skeletal stays of three infants.
The pre-Hispanic bone pile in the Comalapa cave was possible a tzompantli — an altar for worshiping gods that might appear like a modern-day trophy rack, with skulls positioned on aligned wood sticks, Mr. Montes de Paz mentioned. Similar practices have been frequent in Maya, Aztec and different Mesoamerican civilizations, based on Smithsonian Magazine.
The wood materials “disappeared over time and could have collapsed the skulls,” Mr. Montes de Paz added.
Investigators in the cave additionally discovered aligned wood sticks, one other signal of a tzompantli, based on an announcement from the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
While the researchers have but to conclude their examine, Mr. Montes de Paz mentioned it was most certainly that a number of Mesoamerican communities used the cave. Its two entrances have been so steep that researchers had to make use of a ladder to enter.
It was unclear how the skulls have been discovered a decade in the past, or by whom. The authorities mentioned in an announcement {that a} “complaint” had alerted them to the discovery in the city of Carrizal, in the municipality of Frontera Comalapa. The National Institute of Anthropology and History didn’t reply to emailed questions on Wednesday.
Anthropologists learning the skulls discovered different bone fragments at the website, together with a femur and items from arms. Intact our bodies, nevertheless, had not been discovered, Mr. Montes de Paz mentioned.
The Spanish invasion occurred in the 1500s. According to Smithsonian Magazine, when the Spanish arrived, they have been terrified of the rituals.
But the sacrifices appeared to have been frequent in Chiapas. The National Institute of Anthropology and History mentioned that in the Nineteen Eighties, anthropologists explored Cueva de las Banquetas, a cave, and located 124 skulls that didn’t have tooth. In 1993, Mexican and French explorers in Ocozocoautla traveled to Cueva Tapesco del Diablo, one other cave with 5 skulls inside.
Mr. Montes de Paz mentioned his staff was wanting to additional discover the Comalapa cave quickly.
If individuals go to such websites in the future and see skulls, he mentioned, they need to not “touch or pick up anything.” Otherwise, they may have an effect on the archaeological integrity of the website. The individuals who discovered the skulls in Chiapas in 2012 by accident touched a few of the bones, he mentioned. “You affect the history,” he mentioned. “And a lot of information is lost.”
Still, he believed that after extra evaluation, the story of the skulls may quickly be absolutely instructed.
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