Police discovered 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It turns out the victims, principally girls, have been ritually decapitated over 1,000 years ago.

When Mexican police found a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave close to the Guatemalan border, they thought they have been taking a look at a criminal offense scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It seems it was a really cold case.

It took a decade of tests and analysis to determine the skulls were from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the National Institute of Anthropology and History stated Wednesday.

"Believing they were against the law scene, investigators collected the bones and started inspecting them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, often known as INAH, stated in a press release.

The police in 2012 weren't being stupid; the border space around the town of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has lengthy been plagued by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic cranium piles in Mexico often present a hole bashed by means of each side of each skull, and were usually present in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

But experts mentioned Wednesday the victims within the cave had most likely been ritually decapitated and the skulls placed on show on a sort 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.

Whereas usually strung on wood poles utilizing holes bashed via them - the widespread follow among the many Aztecs and different cultures - specialists say the cave skulls might have rested atop poles, reasonably than being strung on them.

Apparently, there were more 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 said folks ought to most likely name archaeologists, not police.

"When individuals find one thing that may very well be in an archaeological context, do not contact it and notify native authorities or directly the INAH," he stated.

In 2015, archaeologists discovered the primary trophy rack of sacrificed human skulls at Mexico Metropolis's Templo Mayor Aztec break web site.

That same year, artifacts discovered at the Zultepec-Tecoaque wreck website revealed proof from when hundreds of people in a Spanish-led convoy have been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 study discovered that in societies where social hierarchies have been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor people, helping the powerful control the lower classes and preserve them of their place.

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