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

When Mexican police discovered a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave close to the Guatemalan border, they thought they had been 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 tests 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 crime scene, investigators collected the bones and started inspecting them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, known as INAH, mentioned in a press release.

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

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

Whereas normally strung on wooden poles using holes bashed by means of them - the frequent follow among the many Aztecs and other cultures - experts say the cave skulls might have rested atop poles, somewhat than being strung on them.

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

In light of the cave expertise, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz stated individuals ought to probably call archaeologists, not police.

"When people find one thing that might 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 site.

That very same 12 months, artifacts found on the Zultepec-Tecoaque ruin website revealed evidence from when a whole lot of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy were captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 research found that in societies the place social hierarchies had been taking shape, ritual human sacrifices focused poor folks, helping the highly effective management the decrease lessons and hold them in their place.

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