Police found 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It seems the victims, principally girls, have been 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 a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It seems it was a really chilly case.

It took a decade of tests 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 mentioned Wednesday.

"Believing they have been a crime scene, investigators collected the bones and began analyzing them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, known as INAH, stated in an announcement.

The police in 2012 weren't being silly; the border space around the city of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has lengthy been stricken by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico usually present a hole bashed via either side of every skull, and had been often found in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

However consultants stated Wednesday the victims in the cave had in all probability been ritually decapitated and the skulls placed on display on a form of trophy rack generally known as a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks in the 1520s, and some Spaniards' heads even wound up on them.

Whereas often strung on picket poles utilizing holes bashed through them - the common practice among the Aztecs and other cultures - specialists say the cave skulls might have rested atop poles, fairly than being strung on them.

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

In gentle of the cave expertise, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz said folks ought to most likely name archaeologists, not police.

"When folks find something that may very well be in an archaeological context, do not contact it and notify native authorities or immediately the INAH," he said.

In 2015, archaeologists discovered the principle trophy rack of sacrificed human skulls at Mexico City's Templo Mayor Aztec destroy website.

That same 12 months, artifacts found on the Zultepec-Tecoaque destroy web site revealed proof from when a whole lot of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy were captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 research discovered that in societies the place social hierarchies had been taking form, ritual human sacrifices targeted poor individuals, serving to the powerful control the lower courses and maintain them in their place.

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