Category Archives: MEXICO

Study Investigates Climate and Collapse of Maya City

Study Investigates Climate and Collapse of Maya City

Study Investigates Climate and Collapse of Maya City
Central Mayapan shows the K’uk’ulkan and Round temples.

An extended period of turmoil in the prehistoric Maya city of Mayapan, in the Yucatan region of Mexico, was marked by population declines, political rivalries and civil conflict.

Between 1441 and 1461 CE the strife reached an unfortunate crescendo—the complete institutional collapse and abandonment of the city. This all occurred during a protracted drought.

Coincidence? Not likely to find new research by anthropologist and professor Douglas Kennett of UC Santa Barbara.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, lead author Kennett and collaborators in the fields of archaeology, history, geography and earth science suggest that drought may in fact have stoked the civil conflict that begat violence, which in turn led to the institutional instabilities that precipitated Mayapan’s collapse.

This transdisciplinary work, the researchers said, “highlights the importance of understanding the complex relationships between natural and social systems, especially when evaluating the role of climate change in exacerbating internal political tensions and factionalism in areas where drought leads to food insecurity.”

“We found complex relationships between climate change and societal stability/instability on the regional level,” Kennett said in an interview.

“Drought-induced civil conflict had a devastating local impact on the integrity of Mayapan’s state institutions that were designed to keep social order. However, the fragmentation of populations at Mayapan resulted in population and societal reorganization that was highly resilient for a hundred years until the Spanish arrived on the shores of the Yucatan.”

The researchers examined archaeological and historical data from Mayapan, including isotope records, radiocarbon data and DNA sequences from human remains, to document in particular an interval of unrest between 1400 and 1450 CE.

They then used regional sources of climatic data and combined it with a newer, local record of drought from cave deposits beneath the city, Kennett explained.

“Existing factional tensions that developed between rival groups were a key societal vulnerability in the context of extended droughts during this interval,” Kennett said. “Pain, suffering and death resulted from institutional instabilities at Mayapan and the population fragmented and moved back to their homelands elsewhere in the region.”

The vulnerabilities revealed in the data, the researchers found, were rooted in Maya reliance on rain-fed maize agriculture, a lack of centralized, long-term grain storage, minimal investments in irrigation and a sociopolitical system led by elite families with competing political interests.

Indeed the authors argue that “long-term, climate-caused hardships provoked restive tensions that were fanned by political actors whose actions ultimately culminated in political violence more than once at Mayapan.”

Yet significantly, a network of small Maya states also proved to be resilient after the collapse at Mayapan, in part by migrating across the region to towns that were still thriving.

Despite decentralization, trade impacts, political upheaval and other challenges, the paper notes, they adapted and persisted into the early 16th century. It all points to the complexity of human responses to drought on the Yucatan Peninsula at that time—an important consideration for the future as well as the past.

“Our study demonstrates that the convergence of information from multiple scientific disciplines helps us explore big and highly relevant questions,” Kennett said, “like the potential impact of climate change on society and other questions with enormous social implications.

“Climate change worries me, particularly here in the western U.S., but it is really the complexities of societal change in response to climatic perturbations that worry me the most,” he added.

“The archaeological and historical records provide lessons from the past, and we also have so much more information about our Earth’s climate and the potential vulnerabilities in our own sociopolitical systems.”

Skeleton With Stone-Encrusted Teeth Found In Mexico Ancient Ruins

Skeleton With Stone-Encrusted Teeth Found In Mexico Ancient Ruins

Archaeologists who found the 1,600-year-old skeleton near Mexico’s ancient Teotihuacan said the woman was 35-40 when she died with an intentionally deformed skull and teeth encrusted with mineral stones

Archaeologists in Mexico have recently uncovered a 1,600-year-old skeleton of a woman who had mineral-encrusted teeth and an intentionally elongated skull – evidence that suggests she was part of her society’s upper class.

While it isn’t uncommon for archaeologists to find deformed remains, the new skeleton is one of the most “extreme” ever recorded.

“Her cranium was elongated by being compressed in a ‘very extreme’ manner, a technique commonly used in the southern part of Mesoamerica, not the central region where she was found,” the team said, according to an AFP report.

The team, led by researchers from the National Anthropology and History Institute in Mexico, found the woman in the ancient ruins of Teotihuacan – a pre-Hispanic civilisation that once lay 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Mexico City, existing between the 1st and 8th century AD before it mysteriously vanished.

The woman, who the researchers have named The Woman of Tlailotlacan after the location she was found inside the ancient city, not only had an elongated skull, but she had her top two teeth encrusted with pyrite stones – a mineral that looks like gold at first glance.

She also had a fake lower tooth made from serpentine – a feature so distinctive, the team says it’s evidence to suggest that she was a foreigner to the ancient city.

The researchers don’t give any details on how these body modifications were performed 1,600-years-ago, or why they were common in the first place.

But based on other cultures, such as the Mayans, artificial cranial deformation was likely done in infancy using bindings to grow the skull outwards, possibly to signal social status.

While very little is known about the woman’s faux-golden grill, researchers from Mexico did find 2,500-year-old Native American remains with gems embedded in their teeth back in 2009.

In that study, the team said that sophisticated dental practices made the modifications possible, though they were likely used purely for decoration and weren’t symbols of class. 

“It’s possible some type of [herb-based] anaesthetic was applied prior to drilling to blunt any pain,” team member José Concepción Jiménez, from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, told National Geographic.

It’s also important to note that the current team’s findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, so we will have to take their word on it for now until they can get their report ready for publication.

The Mexican team aren’t the only ones to discover some interesting human remains lately, either. Back in June, researchers from Australia uncovered 700,000-year-old ‘hobbit’ remains on an island in Indonesia.

More recently, just last week, researchers in China what might be a skull bone belonging to Buddha inside a 1,000-year-old shrine in Nanjing, China.

Needless to say, archaeologists all over the world have been quite busy this year, and we can’t wait to see what they uncover next.

Mexican Archaeologists Find Over 2,500 Rare Wooden Aztec Artifacts!

Mexican Archaeologists Find Over 2,500 Rare Wooden Aztec Artifacts!

Archaeologists have recovered as many as 2,550 wooden objects from the Templo Mayor in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in Mexico City. The rescued objects have survived more than 500 years submerged in water, some completely flooded.

As explained on AncientPages.com earlier, the “most important sacred temple complex of the Aztecs – the Main Temple (in Spanish: Templo Mayor) was built in the centre of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán.

According to Aztec chronicles, the first temple (later followed by its twin temple) was built after 1325 and enlarged several times over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries.

Mural by Diego Rivera of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and life in Aztec times.

The twin temples were dedicated to the god of rain and fertility, Tlaloc (“the one who makes sprout”), and Huitzilopochtli, god of war and sun.

Aztec chronicles confirm that both gods were frequently appeased with human sacrifices and other public rituals that took place in the temple.”

Scientists report the extraordinary offerings found at the foot of the Great Temple of old Tenochtitlan to include darts, dart throwers, pectorals, earrings, masks, ornaments, earmuffs, sceptres, jars, headdresses, a representation of a flower and another of bone, all found in the ritual deposits made by the priests to consecrate a building or make a request to the Aztec gods.

A high and constant level of humidity, little oxygen, and light, as well as minimal temperature fluctuations, contributed to the preservation of the organic remains to this day.

However, due to their natural vulnerability, the rescued objects must be handled with proper care.

Experience has taught scientists how easy such artefacts can be destroyed. In the 1960s, a wooden mask was recovered from the Templo Mayor site. The ancient object was brought to the INAH laboratories and after a few hours, it fell to dust.

Today, scientists have gathered knowledge to take care of objects that are so vulnerable.

Mexican Archaeologists Find Over 2,500 Rare Wooden Aztec Artifacts!

“Currently, the restorers María Barajas Rocha and Adriana Sanromán Peyrón are applying a very innovative conservation technique. Thanks to it, the wood does not melt in our hands. They are extremely delicate objects; when we extract them from the offerings they come out as if they were pork rinds in green sauce.

[That of the Templo Mayor] is a collection, I would dare to say, unique in its kind. It is one of the richest in all of Mesoamerica. First, because of its state of conservation. These types of objects normally do not survive to this day, among other things, because this was an island surrounded by a lake. The conditions caused these objects to survive well over 500 years; another is the collection’s richness and diversity. And, on a symbolic level, it is exceptional, because we are in the capital of the Mexica empire. The materials we have here are spectacular because we are in the heart of an empire. That explains, in part, why we have found not only wood but rubber, flowers, crocodiles, starfish… It is a unique place in the sense that you have three superimposed capitals. Mexico, the capital of 21 million inhabitants.

Then the capital of New Spain, the most important European city overseas, with 170,000 inhabitants; Further down, you have Mexico-Tenochtitlan, with about 200,000 inhabitants. We are excavating in a privileged place such as Jerusalem, Istanbul; Alexandria, in Egypt or Rome itself”, INAH’s López Lujan told to the El Pais.

INAH archaeologists report several of the objects were found inside 7 excavation units and 14 offerings from old Tenochtitlan, were made from softwood obtained from different species of pine. The use of white cedar, cypress, ahuehuete, aile and tepozán has also been identified.

El Pais reports, “the artefacts were found complete or almost complete, and many even preserve traces of polychromy on their surfaces: blue, red, black and white; typical colours used by the Mexica culture. Blue, for example, is associated with the god of rain. Black and white were used to outline figures, for example, to mark closed eyes on masks.

According to Víctor Cortés Meléndez, archaeologist of the Templo Mayor Project, the stories of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún mention that in the Mexica era carpenters and carvers were specialized craftsmen who made use of the existing trees and plants in the Basin of Mexico. “

“Trees in Mesoamerica, especially some species, were considered axis Mundi, they were sacred. There were pieces adorned with wood by Mexica priests, for example, copal figurines, basalt braziers and flint knives. To the flint knife they put his earmuffs and his serpentine sceptre, one of the attributes of Tlaloc,” the archaeologist told El Pais.

“Most of the wooden pieces are miniature representations of pitchers, deer-shaped or serpentine scepters; miniature and pectoral masks; darts, throwing darts (atlatl) and mallets, with which they adorned the protagonist animals of the offerings of the Great Temple.

Scientists explain the discovery of the monolith of the goddess Tlaltecuhtli, the unique monumental sculpture that represents the earth, on the property that was previously occupied by the Mayorazgo of Nava Chávez , has motivated the team of specialists from the Templo Mayor Project, led by archaeologist Leonardo López Lujánto to excavate at the site. If everything goes well we may soon be able to learn more about the discoveries made at this historical site.

Children’s Burials Hint at the Survival of Aztec Customs

Children’s Burials Hint at the Survival of Aztec Customs

Four children in Mexico were buried in the years after the Spanish Conquest with rituals and grave offerings that suggest that pre-Hispanic customs lived on for some time after the Aztec empire fell.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History said Monday the burials of children ranging from a newborn to a girl aged between 6 and 8, were found in a working-class district just north of Mexico City’s historic centre.

When the Spanish conquered the Aztec capital in 1521, they quickly expelled the Indigenous Mexica population to the city’s edges, reserving the centre for the homes of only Spaniards.

Archaeologists estimate the children were buried in a layer of earth that dated between 1521 and 1620. Even though the Spaniards quickly outlawed most pre-Hispanic ceremonies and religious practices, researchers found evidence the children were buried with Aztec-style grave goods.

The youngest, the newborn, was buried inside a pot, with other pots around it. The bulbous shape of the pot was thought to imitate the form of a uterus, and it was not clear if the child died before or after birth.

Another offering found at the site included the bones of a bird in a ceramic pot with blue colouring, associated with water.

The older girl was buried with a large clay Aztec-style figurine depicting a female figure holding a child. Her skull showed signs of possible anaemia, malnutrition or infection, signs that suggest life was hard for the Indigenous population in the years following the conquest.

In December, archaeologists announced they had discovered another house site on the outskirts of the city’s centre where 13 large clay ceremonial Aztec incense burners had been carefully buried, again after the Conquest, suggesting that pre-Hispanic beliefs and customs lasted on for some time.

The incense burners had been carefully buried in a pattern that may refer to the Aztec calendar and were covered with adobe bricks as if to hide them.

Archaeologists discover passageways in 3,000-year-old Peruvian temple

Archaeologists discover passageways in 3,000-year-old Peruvian temple

Archaeologists have excavated a network of passageways under a 3,000-year-old temple in the Peruvian Andes. Chavin de Huantar temple was once a religious and administrative hub for people across the region, Reuters reported.

Archaeologists discover passageways in 3,000-year-old Peruvian temple
Archaeologists work on the new discovery in the Peruvian Andes in Ancash

Found earlier this month, the passageways have features believed to have been built earlier than the temple’s labyrinthine galleries, according to an archaeologist at Stanford University.

John Rick, who was involved in the discovery, said: “It’s a passageway, but it’s very different. It’s a different form of construction. It has features from earlier periods that we’ve never seen in passageways.”

At least 35 underground passageways, which sit 3,200m above sea level, have been found over several years, connecting with each other.

They were built between 1,200 and 200 years BC in the foothills of the Andes.

Chavin de Huantar, declared a World Heritage Site in 1985, was the inspiration and name of the operation carried out when the Peruvian armed forces built a network of tunnels to rescue 72 people taken hostage by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) rebel group at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima in 1997.

The archaeological site of Chavin de Huantar, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, is seen some 155 miles (250 km) north of Lima on July 18, 2008.

It comes as archaeologists uncovered an “unprecedented” network of lost cities in the Amazon that shed light on how ancient civilisations constructed vast urban landscapes while living alongside nature.

Researchers used lidar technology, dubbed “lasers in the sky”, to scan through the tropical forest canopy, and examine sites found in the savannah forest of southwest Amazonia.

They uncovered a wide range of intricate settlements that have laid hidden under thick tree canopies for centuries in the Llanos de Mojos savannah forest in Bolivia.

The findings, described in the journal Nature on Wednesday, shed light on cities built by the Casarabe communities between AD500 and AD1400.

Heiko Prumers, an archaeologist and study co-author from the German Archaeological Institute, said the complexity of the settlements was “mind-blowing”.

The site features an unprecedented array of elaborate and intricate structures “unlike any previously discovered” in the region, including 5m high terraces covering 22 hectares – the equivalent of 30 football pitches – and 21m tall conical pyramids, say the scientists, including Jose Iriarte from the University of Exeter in the UK.

Researchers examined six areas within a 4,500 sq km region of the Llanos de Mojos, in the Bolivian Amazon, that belonged to the Casarabe culture.

They also found a vast network of reservoirs, causeways, and checkpoints, spanning several kilometres at the site.

1,000-Year-Old Aztatlán Burials Uncovered in Coastal Mexico

1,000-Year-Old Aztatlán Burials Uncovered in Coastal Mexico

The space where the exploration is carried out corresponds to a natural mound in an area of ​​estuaries, whose surface was used to establish occupation. To date, an Aztatlán-style pipe and three complete vessels have been found, although fragmented, as well as bone, remains from burials, until now unique in this port.

Findings of the Aztatlán culture.

Mazatlán, Sinaloa.- A new archaeological site of the Aztatlán culture with burials of unique characteristics has been discovered in the urban area of ​​the port of this Sinaloa city, during the paving and infrastructure construction works, in the northern extension of the Avenida del Dolphin.

From May 16 to 28, the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico, through specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), carried out the archaeological salvage. The site was found by workers when a pipe ruptured exposing human remains; After the corresponding expert opinion and since they were ancient vestiges, the INAH was called to rescue them. 

The space, where the works are carried out, corresponds to a natural mound, located in an area of ​​estuaries, whose surface was used in pre-Hispanic times to establish an occupation, on a high point to avoid flooding, while taking advantage of the ecosystem, reports archaeologist Víctor Joel Santos Ramírez, coordinator of the salvage.

Santos Ramírez, a researcher at the INAH Sinaloa Center, details that the surface of the mound was covered with rammed shell debris, to build perishable constructions on top and under this floor the human burials were placed, one of them accompanied by an excellently made Aztatlán-style glass: “In Mazatlan, a burial of these characteristics had not been found: under a shell floor and accompanied by fine ceramics, since burials inside pots are common in the region,” explains the archaeologist.

1,000-Year-Old Aztatlán Burials Uncovered in Coastal Mexico
Archaeological salvage in Mazatlan Sinaloa.

This characteristic makes the finding relevant for the archaeology of the region, for which the INAH is seeking an agreement with the Mazatlan City Council, in order to protect the site as an archaeological reserve and resume excavation work in the near future, Santos Ramírez reported.

As of May 27, at the site, which is being explored by the archaeologist Paola Martínez Delgadillo, in charge of the fieldwork, and the restoration technician, Eduardo Núñez Montesinos, coordinated by the archaeologist Víctor Joel Santos Ramírez, an Aztatlán style pipe and three complete vessels, although fragmented, among which the glass stands out; in addition to the human bone remains in a poor state of conservation, due to the natural characteristics of the Mazatlán soil.

Aztatlán style glass of excellent billing.

The pottery found is of excellent technical quality, located in the Acaponeta phase (900-1100/1200 AD), reports Santos Ramírez.

The settlement was part of a broad culture that, according to research by Alfonso Grave Tirado, also an archaeologist from the INAH Sinaloa Center, a scholar of this region, developed from the year 900 AD, a date that coincides with the time of the greatest social development. , economic and political of southern Sinaloa and northern Nayarit, known in the archaeological literature as Horizonte Aztatlán.

The archaeologist comments that surely this is not the only pre-Hispanic site and that it is very likely that evidence of an important ancient settlement, still unknown, is found throughout this area.

According to Víctor Joel Santos Ramírez, there have been few archaeological sites registered in the port of Mazatlan -no more than 10-, since most have disappeared due to the growth of the urban sprawl and unfortunately, authorities are rarely notified. ; this case is the exception since the INAH was notified, the archaeologists have received the support of personnel from the Comprehensive Port Administration and the contractor company, as well as from the Mazatlán City Council to carry out the research work.

The excavation is carried out systematically, although it is very difficult due to the depth and hardness of the soil, it is estimated that the work will conclude this weekend with just an approximation of the site, concludes the archaeologist.

Aztec war sacrifices found in Mexico may point to the elusive royal tomb

Aztec war sacrifices found in Mexico may point to the elusive royal tomb

Aztec war sacrifices found in Mexico may point to the elusive royal tomb
An archaeologist works on a 500-year-old partially-excavated stone box containing an Aztec offering

A newly discovered trove of Aztec sacrifices could lead archaeologists to an elusive Aztec emperor’s tomb. Such a discovery would mark a first since no Aztec royal burial has yet been found despite decades of digging.

The sacrificial offerings, including a richly adorned jaguar dressed as a warrior, were found in Mexico City, Reuters reports.

“We have enormous expectations right now,” lead archaeologist Leonardo Lopez Lujan said.

“As we go deeper we think we’ll continue finding very rich objects.”

Discovered off the steps of the Aztec’s holiest temple, the sacrificial offerings also include a young boy, dressed to resemble the Aztec war god and solar deity, and a set of flint knives elaborately decorated with mother of pearl and precious stones.

The offerings were deposited by Aztec priests over five centuries ago in front of the temple where the earliest historical accounts describe the final resting place of Aztec kings.

The interior of a stone box shows an Aztec offering including a set of black flint knives decorated to represent warriors

Only around a tenth of the box has been excavated but plenty of artefacts have already been uncovered, including a large number of shells, and bright red starfish that it’s believed represented the watery underworld the Aztecs believed the sun travelled through at night before emerging in the east to begin a new day.

“There’s an enormous amount of coral that’s blocking what we can see below,” said archaeologist Miguel Baez, part of the excavation team.

Route to an Aztec king?

Chroniclers detailed the burial rites of three Aztec kings, all brothers who ruled from 1469 to 1502.

According to these accounts, the rulers’ ashes were deposited with opulent offerings and the hearts of sacrificed slaves.

In 2006, a huge monolith of the Aztec earth goddess was found nearby with an inscription corresponding to the year 1502, which is when the empire’s greatest ruler and the last of the brothers, Ahuitzotl, passed away.

Elizabeth Boone, an ancient Mexico specialist at Tulane University, notes that the jaguar may represent the king as a fearless warrior.

“You could have Ahuitzotl in that box,” she said.

Aztec House and Floating Gardens Discovered Under Mexico City

Aztec House and Floating Gardens Discovered Under Mexico City

Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of a dwelling that was built up to 800 years ago during the Aztec Empire in the Centro neighbourhood of Mexico City, Mexico, during works to modernize the area.

Aztec House and Floating Gardens Discovered Under Mexico City
Excavated walls of the Aztec house, and one of the funerary vessels.

The centuries-old abode was discovered by archaeologists and construction workers ahead of an initiative to update electrical power substations.

The dwelling is believed to date from the late Postclassic period (A.D. 1200 to 1521) and would have been located on the border of two neighbourhoods in the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, according to a statement from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). It spans over 4,300 square feet (400 square meters), or about half the size of a baseball diamond.

During the Late Postclassic, the area that is now being excavated was a residential and agricultural centre, and archaeologists at the site also found the remains of channels and a jetty (a platform where boats stop to load or unload) used in the Aztec chinampa method of farming.

The chinampa technique involved growing crops on small areas of artificial land (sometimes referred to as floating gardens) on shallow lake beds.

Archaeologists found more Aztec artefacts in the residential area of the excavations. Under the Aztec building’s thick adobe floors, the excavation team found a pair of funerary vessels that contain the bone remains of infants, as well as several burials associated with an offering of censers (vessels in which incense is burned), whorls (a spinning machine or spindle) and spinning tools.

The researchers also unearthed a stone statue that stands just over 23.5 inches (60 centimetres) tall. The statue, also from the late Postclassic period, depicts a man wearing a loincloth who looks as if he is throwing something.

Archaeologists believe that the statue may have been unfinished, as it lacks polish on the body, and they speculated that it may have been hidden at the time of Spanish intervention in the Aztec Empire, which began around A.D. 1521 according to the statement.

Investigations into the remains of the dwelling also show evidence of saddlery and ceramic workshop, which existed on the site in the colonial era of the 16th and 17th centuries. 

During the 19th century, it’s possible that part of this site was used as public baths, archaeologist Alicia Bracamontes Cruz, who is involved with the excavation, said in the statement.

Researchers uncovered remnants of these baths, including bathroom tile floors and a drainage system. It’s likely that wealthy people used these baths, according to descriptions in the chronicles of José María Marroquí, a 19th-century Mexican physician and historian.

Archaeological work is expected to continue in the area as a pipeline bank is constructed to go inside the new substation.