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

When Mexican police discovered a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave near the Guatemalan border, they thought they were taking a look at a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It turns out it was a very cold case.

It took a decade of exams and analysis to determine the skulls were from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past said Wednesday.

"Believing they had been taking a look at a crime scene, investigators collected the bones and started analyzing them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, 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 lengthy been suffering from violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico usually present a hole bashed through both sides of every cranium, and have been usually found in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

But specialists stated Wednesday the victims in the cave had probably been ritually decapitated and the skulls placed on show on a form of trophy rack known as a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks in the 1520s, and a few Spaniards' heads even wound up on them.

While normally strung on wooden poles utilizing holes bashed through them - the common observe among the many Aztecs and different cultures - consultants say the cave skulls could have rested atop poles, fairly than being strung on them.

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

In light of the cave expertise, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz mentioned individuals ought to in all probability call archaeologists, not police.

"When folks discover one thing that may very well be in an archaeological context, do not contact it and notify native authorities or straight the INAH," he said.

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

That same year, artifacts found on the Zultepec-Tecoaque damage web site revealed evidence from when a whole bunch of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy had been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 research found that in societies the place social hierarchies have been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor individuals, serving to the highly effective control the decrease courses and preserve them in their place.

Trending News