Police found 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It turns out the victims, largely ladies, have been ritually decapitated over 1,000 years ago.

When Mexican police discovered a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave near the Guatemalan border, they thought they had been taking a look at a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It seems it was a really chilly case.

It took a decade of assessments and evaluation to determine the skulls had been from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past mentioned Wednesday.

"Believing they were taking a look at a criminal offense scene, investigators collected the bones and started analyzing them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, referred to as INAH, said in an announcement.

The police in 2012 weren't being stupid; the border space across the town of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has long been affected by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico normally present a hole bashed via each side of each cranium, and had been normally present in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

However consultants said Wednesday the victims within the cave had most likely been ritually decapitated and the skulls placed on show on a type of trophy rack known as a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks within the 1520s, and some Spaniards' heads even wound up on them.

Whereas usually strung on wooden poles utilizing holes bashed through them - the widespread observe among the many Aztecs and other cultures - consultants say the cave skulls may have rested atop poles, reasonably than being strung on them.

Apparently, there were more females than males among the many victims, and none of them had any teeth.

In light of the cave experience, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz stated folks ought to in all probability name archaeologists, not police.

"When folks find something that may very well be in an archaeological context, don't touch it and notify native authorities or straight the INAH," he stated.

In 2015, archaeologists found the primary trophy rack of sacrificed human skulls at Mexico Metropolis's Templo Mayor Aztec destroy site.

That same yr, artifacts discovered on the Zultepec-Tecoaque break website revealed proof from when a whole lot of people in a Spanish-led convoy had been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 study found that in societies the place social hierarchies had been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor folks, serving to the powerful management the lower courses and preserve them in their place.

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