In 2012, authorities in Chiapas, in the southern state of Mexico, entered a dark cave and came across a Dantesque sight: about 150 skulls scattered on the ground, all with missing teeth and some crushed bones.
Thinking it was the scene of a crime involving dead migrants near the border with Guatemala, where gang violence is common, the police opened an investigation.
It was a crime scene indeed. But not from a recent crime.
Last week, ten years after the discovery, authorities announced that they had determined the skulls to be victims of sacrificial murders committed between 900 and 1,200 AD.
“We’ve already amassed a lot of information,” said an archaeologist who analyzed the bones, Javier Montes de Paz, speaking at an April 11 press conference. “But it’s important to ask: what were those skulls doing in that cave?”
Researchers at the National Institute of Anthropology and History analyzed marks on the bones and determined that the deaths occurred centuries ago. These marks would only appear after “a very, very long time,” said Montes de Paz.
The researchers found that the victims had been decapitated, that most of the bones were from women, and that they all had missing teeth, although it is unclear whether they were extracted during life or after death from the victims, the archaeologist said.
The researchers also found skeletal remains of three young children.
The pile of pre-Hispanic bones in the Comalapa cave was likely a “tzompantli”—an altar, made for the worship of gods, that would have looked like a modern sports trophy stand, with skulls placed on strung wooden poles. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, similar practices were common among the Mayans, Aztecs, and other Mesoamerican civilizations.
According to Montes de Paz, the wood material “decomposed over time and may have caused the skulls to fall to the ground”.
Researchers also found wooden sticks lining the cave – another sign of a “tzompantli”, according to a statement by the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
The researchers have not yet completed their studies, but according to Montes de Paz, it is most likely that the cave was used by several Mesoamerican communities. Its two entrances are so steep that scientists had to use a ladder to enter.
It’s unclear how the skulls were discovered a decade ago, or by whom. Authorities said a complaint alerted them to the discovery made in the town of Carrizal, in the municipality of Frontera Comalapa.
Anthropologists who studied the skulls identified other bone fragments in the cave, including a femur and pieces of arms. But no intact remains were found.
The Spanish invasion took place around 1500. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, when the Spaniards arrived, they were afraid of the rituals.
But sacrifices seem to have been common in Chiapas. The National Institute of Anthropology and History revealed that in the 1980s anthropologists explored the Cueva de las Banquetas cave and found 124 toothless skulls. In 1993, Mexican and French explorers in Ocozocoautla went to another cave, the Cueva Tapesco del Diablo, which contained five skulls.
The archaeologist said his team is looking forward to exploring the Comalapa cave more extensively.
He recommended that if people go to places like these in the future and come across skulls, they don’t touch anything, as this could affect the archaeological integrity of the site. According to him, people who found the skulls in Chiapas in 2012 accidentally touched some of the bones. “You affect the story,” he explained. “And a lot of information is lost.”
Even so, he believes that, after further analysis, it will soon be possible to tell the full story of the skulls.
