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They think the skulls are the victims of murder’. They have been lost for centuries.


In 2012, authorities in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas entered a dark cave and were confronted with a horrifying sight: some 150 skulls sprawled across the ground, all with their teeth missing and bone fragments.

Police have begun an investigation, believing it to be the crime scene of migrants killed near the border with Guatemala, where the gang violence is a normal thing.

Indeed, it was a crime scene. Just not a recent occurrence.

Last week, 10 years after the discovery, authorities said declare that they have identified the skulls as from sacrificial murders between AD 900 and 1200.

Javier Montes de Paz, an archaeologist who analyzed the bones, said in a press conference on April 11. “We learned a lot: “But it is important to note: What did the pencil do in that cave? ”

Researchers at the National Institute of Anthropology and History analyzed the bones and determined that the deaths occurred centuries ago. Mr. Montes de Paz said such traces would appear only after “a lot, a lot of time”.

The researchers found that the victims had been decapitated, most of the bones were from female victims, and all were missing teeth, although it is unclear whether they were extracted before or after death, he said. Montes de Paz said.

The researchers also found the skeletons of three infants.

Mr. Montes de Paz said that the pile of pre-Hispanic bones in the Comalapa cave is likely a tzompantli – an altar to the gods that looks like a modern-day trophy stand, with skulls placed on slats straight wood. Similar practices were common in Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican civilizations, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

The wood material “disappeared over time and may have collapsed the skulls,” added Montes de Paz.

Cave investigators also found aligned wooden slats, another sign of tzompantli, according to one declare from the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

While the researchers have yet to finish their study, Montes de Paz said it’s possible that some Mesoamerican communities used the cave. Its two entrances are so steep that researchers have to use ladders to get in.

It is unclear how the skulls were found a decade ago, or by whom. Authorities said in a statement that a “complaint” alerted them to the discovery in the town of Carrizal, in the municipality of Frontera Comalapa. The National Institute of Anthropology and History did not respond to emailed questions on Wednesday.

Anthropologists studying the skull have found other bone fragments at the site, including a femur and fragments from the arm. However, intact bodies have yet to be found, Mr. Montes de Paz said.

The Spanish invasion happened in the 1500s. According to Smithsonian Magazine, when the Spaniards arrived, they were afraid of the rituals.

But sacrifices seem to have been common in Chiapas. The National Institute of Anthropology and History In the 1980s, anthropologists explored the Cueva de las Banquetas cave and found 124 skulls without teeth. In 1993, Mexican and French explorers in Ocozocoautla came to Cueva Tapesco del Diablo, another cave with five skulls inside.

Mr. Montes de Paz said his team is looking forward to exploring more of the Comalapa caves soon.

If people visit such sites in the future and see skulls, he said, they should not “touch or pick up anything”. Otherwise, they may affect the archaeological integrity of the site. People who found the skull in Chiapas in 2012 accidentally touched some of the bone fragments, he said. “You influence history,” he said. “And a lot of information is lost.”

However, he believes that after more analysis, the story of the skulls could soon be told in full.



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