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

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

It turns out it was a very chilly case.

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

"Believing they had been looking at against the law scene, investigators collected the bones and started inspecting them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, often known as INAH, stated in a press release.

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

However specialists mentioned Wednesday the victims in the cave had most likely been ritually decapitated and the skulls placed on display on a sort 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 often strung on picket poles utilizing holes bashed by way of them - the frequent practice among the many Aztecs and other cultures - specialists say the cave skulls could have rested atop poles, moderately than being strung on them.

Interestingly, there have been 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 mentioned people should most likely call archaeologists, not police.

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

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

That very same year, artifacts found at the Zultepec-Tecoaque smash site revealed proof from when lots of of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy were captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 research found that in societies the place social hierarchies were taking shape, ritual human sacrifices targeted poor individuals, serving to the highly effective management the lower lessons and preserve them in their place.

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