Police discovered 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It seems the victims, largely girls, had been ritually decapitated over 1,000 years in the past.

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

It seems it was a very chilly case.

It took a decade of assessments and analysis to find out the skulls were from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the National Institute of Anthropology and History stated Wednesday.

"Believing they had been against the law scene, investigators collected the bones and began analyzing them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, referred to as INAH, mentioned in an announcement.

The police in 2012 weren't being stupid; the border space around the city of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has lengthy been plagued by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic cranium piles in Mexico usually present a hole bashed by means of each side of each skull, and were normally found in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

But experts stated Wednesday the victims within the cave had in all probability been ritually decapitated and the skulls put on show on a type of trophy rack often known as a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks within the 1520s, and a few Spaniards' heads even wound up on them.

While often strung on picket poles utilizing holes bashed by them - the frequent observe among the Aztecs and different cultures - specialists say the cave skulls could have rested atop poles, moderately than being strung on them.

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

In light of the cave expertise, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz mentioned people ought to most likely name archaeologists, not police.

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

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

That very same yr, artifacts found at the Zultepec-Tecoaque break site revealed proof from when tons of of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy had been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 study discovered that in societies the place social hierarchies have been taking shape, ritual human sacrifices targeted poor folks, serving to the highly effective management the lower courses and preserve them in their place.

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