Police found 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It seems the victims, principally women, were ritually decapitated over 1,000 years in the past.

When Mexican police discovered a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave close to the Guatemalan border, they thought they have been 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 exams and evaluation to find out the skulls have been from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past mentioned Wednesday.

"Believing they were looking at a crime scene, investigators collected the bones and began inspecting them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, known as INAH, stated in a press release.

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

However specialists said Wednesday the victims in the cave had most likely been ritually decapitated and the skulls placed on show on a kind of trophy rack often known as 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 picket poles utilizing holes bashed via them - the widespread follow among the many Aztecs and other cultures - consultants say the cave skulls may have rested atop poles, relatively than being strung on them.

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

In mild of the cave expertise, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz mentioned people should probably name archaeologists, not police.

"When people discover one thing that might be in an archaeological context, do not contact it and notify local authorities or immediately the INAH," he mentioned.

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

That same yr, artifacts discovered on the Zultepec-Tecoaque break web site revealed proof from when tons of of people in a Spanish-led convoy were captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 research discovered that in societies where social hierarchies had been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor individuals, helping the highly effective control the decrease classes and maintain them in their place.

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