Police discovered 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It turns out the victims, mostly ladies, were ritually decapitated over 1,000 years ago.

When Mexican police found a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave close to the Guatemalan border, they thought they were taking a look at against the law scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It turns out it was a really chilly case.

It took a decade of checks and evaluation to determine the skulls were from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the National Institute of Anthropology and Historical past said Wednesday.

"Believing they were looking 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 a statement.

The police in 2012 weren't being stupid; the border area across the city of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has long been stricken by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico usually show a gap bashed by each side of every skull, and were often present in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

But consultants mentioned Wednesday the victims within the cave had probably been ritually decapitated and the skulls put on display on a form of trophy rack often called a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks in the 1520s, and some Spaniards' heads even wound up on them.

While usually strung on wood poles using holes bashed via them - the frequent practice among the many Aztecs and different cultures - consultants say the cave skulls could have rested atop poles, fairly than being strung on them.

Apparently, there have been more females than males among the victims, and none of them had any enamel.

In gentle of the cave experience, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz said people should most likely call archaeologists, not police.

"When individuals find something that could possibly be in an archaeological context, don't contact it and notify native authorities or immediately the INAH," he stated.

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

That same 12 months, artifacts discovered at the Zultepec-Tecoaque spoil site revealed evidence from when a whole lot of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy had been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 examine discovered that in societies the place social hierarchies have been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor individuals, helping the highly effective management the lower courses and preserve them in their place.

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