Police found 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It seems the victims, largely girls, were 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 crime 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 have been from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the National Institute of Anthropology and History mentioned Wednesday.

"Believing they had been taking a look at against the law scene, investigators collected the bones and started examining them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, often known as INAH, mentioned in a statement.

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

However consultants said Wednesday the victims within the cave had probably been ritually decapitated and the skulls put on display on a type of trophy rack generally 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 through them - the frequent follow among the Aztecs and different cultures - consultants say the cave skulls might have rested atop poles, relatively than being strung on them.

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

In light of the cave expertise, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz stated people should most likely call archaeologists, not police.

"When folks discover one thing that may very well be in an archaeological context, don't touch it and notify local authorities or instantly the INAH," he mentioned.

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

That very same yr, artifacts discovered at the Zultepec-Tecoaque damage website revealed proof from when lots of of people in a Spanish-led convoy had been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

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

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