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

When Mexican police discovered a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave near the Guatemalan border, they thought they were looking at a criminal offense scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It seems it was a really chilly case.

It took a decade of checks and analysis 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 have been a crime scene, investigators collected the bones and began examining them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, known as INAH, said in a press release.

The police in 2012 weren't being silly; the border space across the town of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has lengthy been plagued by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico usually show a hole bashed via either side of each cranium, and were often found in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

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

Whereas often strung on wood poles utilizing holes bashed via them - the frequent apply among the many Aztecs and different cultures - experts say the cave skulls could have rested atop poles, relatively than being strung on them.

Curiously, there have been extra females than males among the many victims, and none of them had any enamel.

In gentle of the cave experience, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz mentioned individuals should probably name archaeologists, not police.

"When folks discover one thing that could be in an archaeological context, don't contact it and notify native authorities or immediately the INAH," he mentioned.

In 2015, archaeologists discovered the principle trophy rack of sacrificed human skulls at Mexico City's Templo Mayor Aztec break website.

That very same 12 months, artifacts discovered at the Zultepec-Tecoaque smash website revealed evidence from when hundreds of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy have been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 examine found that in societies the place social hierarchies have been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor people, helping the powerful control the decrease lessons and preserve them of their place.

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