Ancient “Coyote-Man” Sculpture Recovered in Mexico

Archaeologists from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico have recovered an important artefact of pre-Hispanic culture: a monumental coyote-headed figure perched on a throne.

Known as the coyote-man from Tacámbaro, an area in the central Mexican state of Michoacán, the sculpture was discovered almost 30 years ago during construction work in the municipality.

The artefact was held in a private collection until it was recovered by the NAH Michoacán Center through a Mexican federal law that regulates the ownership and preservation of national cultural property.

The Llanos de Canícuaro neighbourhood in Tacámbaro, where the coyote-man was first unearthed, was the site of the Tarascan city of Tzintzuntza, meaning “place of the hummingbirds” in the Purépecha language.

Representations of coyote spirits were prolific in the ancient settlement, though few were as tall or intricately carved as the sculpture recovered.

In a statement, INAH said its specialists are now assessing the state of the work, as a series of fractures were sustained during its rough extraction by the municipality.

Once the conservation is executed, it’s expected to “have a place of honour within the archaeological collection of the community museum of the city council,” according to the institute.

On the importance of the sculpture, archaeologist José Luis Punzo said, “We know that the last lords of Tzintzuntzan, who wrote the Relacion de Michoacán, were the so-called uacúsecha, the ‘lineage of the eagle’.

Next to this was another large city on Lake Pátzcuaro, Ihuatzio, which means ‘place of coyotes’, where most of these sculptures have been located.”

He added: “One of the hypotheses is that the coyote-man sculptures could represent a dynasty that ruled this place, even before the Uacúsecha history was written.”

Archaeology breakthrough after human remains found in 2,000-year-old Aztec pyramid

The ancient Aztec civilisation has captured the imagination and intrigue of millions of people across the world. At one point, they were among the most advanced humans on the planet, leading the way in both fields of science and medicine.

They built great cities for hundreds of thousands of people, creating complex irrigation systems not seen for hundreds of years. But, in the early 16th century, after Spanish invaders reached Central American shores, the once-great civilisation fell to its knees and was lost forever.

The ancient city of Teotihuacan has since been excavated and studied by archaeologists, many travelling from the US and around the world to learn about how the Aztecs once lived and ruled.

One surprising discovery made beneath the largest pyramid in the city, the Pyramid of the Sun, was explored during Discovery’s short documentary, ‘Shocking Artefacts And Human Remain Found In 2000-Year-Old Pyramid’.

Here, archaeologists unearthed a tunnel in the bedrock, at first believing that it was a natural cave. However, on further investigation, they hit a carved out chamber, and beyond it, the remnants of 17 thick man-made walls, built to block access to the tunnel.

At the very end of the tunnel, they fund an elaborate chamber carved in the shape of a clover. Now, the tunnel lies empty, likely stripped of its contents by robbers over the centuries.

But, the discovery under the Sun pyramid was just the beginning: in 2003, a tunnel was discovered beneath the Feathered Serpent pyramid. Then, in 2017, Mexican archaeologist Sergio Gómez uncovered another secret tunnel under the Feathered Serpent pyramid.

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This tunnel appeared untouched by thieves as Sergio and his team discovered more than 100,000 different objects.

He said: “Extraordinary objects, some of them never seen before in any Mexican archaeological exploration.”

Undisturbed for 1,800 years, the objects were found lying exactly where they had first been placed as ritual offerings to the gods. Some of the pieces unearthed included greenstone crocodile teeth, crystals shaped into eyes, and sculptures of jaguars ready to pounce.

Above the intricate system of tunnels, at the heart of the pyramid, excavations revealed a darker secret: the remains of countless humans. Anthropologist Saburo Sugiyama examined the myriad bones unearthed from the ancient city of Teotihuacan.

He said: “Human bones tell us a lot of things: male, female, how many years they had when they died, how they lived, how they died.”

He believes the bones found may be evidence of gruesome human sacrifice, with the biggest clue coming from the way in which the bones were found. Archaeologists stumbled across them while tunnelling deep inside the body of the pyramid.

Inside the Feathered Serpent’s pyramid, at its centre, is a “dark secret”: 20 skeletons, almost completely intact, carefully arranged in what looks like a “symbolic pattern”.

They were not alone, as, in total, over 260 bodies were found to be built unto the fabric and foundation of the building.

The narrator noted: “The pyramid is a mass grave.”

The dead, and the way in which they were killed, can now yield crucial clues about the civilisation and how they lived.

READ ALSO: RESEARCHERS CONFIRM: THE LARGEST PYRAMID IN MEXICO HAS BEEN FOUND

These will add to the already far-ranging finds made at Teotihuacan, including the existence of a playing court near the plaza, where residents would have played the Mesoamerican equivalent of racquetball.

And, in another pyramid, copious remains of animal sacrifices have been discovered, including wolves, rattlesnakes, golden eagles and pumas.

Researchers confirm: The Largest Pyramid in Mexico has been found

Researchers in Mexico have discovered an immense pyramid, even larger than Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Sun. It’s 75 meters in height and was explored by specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History. It is located in the acropolis of Tonina, Chiapas and is likely around 1,700 years old.

The director of the archaeological zone, Emiliano Gallaga, says that the work, done over the course of two years, verified that the northeastern portion of the site was, indeed, the largest pyramid in Mexico. It is comparable to pyramids found in Tikal and El Mirador of the Mayan civilization.

One unique feature is the seven platforms that serve as palaces, temples, housing, and what were essentially administrating offices. This unique structure functioned within the social, religious, and political-cultural structure.

“It’s a big surprise to see that the pyramid was done almost entirely by pre-Hispanic architects and therefore is more artificial than natural,” says Gallagas. “This is because it was believed that the entire structure was a natural hill, but recent evidence has revealed that the structure was almost entirely built by ancient inhabitants.”  Archaeologists noted that the pyramid was much larger than they expected it to be. The structure has roads running through it as well.

The temple-pyramid complex was built in four stages, starting from the 3rd century BC through the 9th century AD, and was dedicated to the deity Quetzalcoatl. It has a base of 450 by 450 metres (1,480 by 1,480 ft) and a height of 66 m (217 ft).

According to the Guinness Book of Records, it is in fact the largest pyramid as well as the largest monument ever constructed anywhere in the world, with a total volume estimated at over 4.45 million cubic metres, even larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, which is about 2.5 million cubic metres.

However the Great Pyramid of Giza is higher at 138.8 metres (455 ft). The ceramics of Cholula were closely linked to those of Teotihuacan, and both sites appeared to decline simultaneously. The Postclassic Aztecs believed that Xelhua built the Great Pyramid of Cholula.

At its peak, Cholula had the second largest population in Mexico of an estimated 100,000 people living at this site. Although the prehispanic city of Cholula continued to be inhabited, the Great Pyramid was abandoned in the 8th century at a time when the city suffered a drastic drop in population.

Even after this drop-off in population, the Great Pyramid retained its religious importance. The site was once called Acholollan (in Nahuatl) meaning place of flight.

This meaning has led some to believe that this site was founded after its original inhabitants fled (from?) elsewhere. According to myth, the pyramid was built by a giant named Xelhua of adobe bricks, after he escaped a flood in the neighboring Valley of Mexico. 

The pyramid consists of six superimposed structures, one for each ethnic group that dominated it. However, only three have been studied in any depth.

The pyramid itself is just a small part of the greater archaeological zone of Cholula, which is estimated at 154 hectares (0.59 sq mi).

The building of the pyramid began in the Preclassic Period and overtime was built over six times to its final dimensions of 450 metres on each side at the base and 66 metres tall. This base is four times the size of that of Pharaoh Khufu’s Great Pyramid of Gizaand is the largest pyramid base in the Americas.

The earliest construction phase features talud-tablero architecture that is characteristic of the region, and that became strongly associated with the great metropolis of Teotihuacan. Some of the pyramid constructions have had burials, with skeletons found in various positions, with many offerings, especially ceramics.

The last state of construction has stairs on the west side leading to a temple on top, which faced Iztaccíhuatl. During the colonial period, the pyramid was severely damaged on its north side in order to build the Camino Real to Puebla. The west was damaged later with the installation of a rail line.

Mammoth graveyard unearthed at Mexico’s new airport

Archaeologists in hard hats and face masks carefully remove earth from around enormous bones at the site of Mexico City’s new airport, where construction work has uncovered a huge trove of mammoth skeletons.

The remains of dozens of the extinct giants and other prehistoric creatures have been found in Zumpango on the northern edge of the capital, which sits on an ancient lake bed.

“More than 100 individual mammoths, individual camels, horses, bison, fish, birds, antelopes and rodents have already been recovered,” said army captain Jesus Cantoral, who heads the excavation team.

In total remains have been found at 194 spots across the site since the first discoveries were made in October last year during work on a fuel terminal, he told AFP.

Most of the animals are believed to have roamed the Earth between 10,000 and 25,000 years ago. Experts worked painstakingly to extract the bones of one of the mammoth skeletons, taking care not to disturb a mound of the earth supporting another specimen.

At the same time thousands of construction workers continued to labour away across the site as dozens of excavators and trucks shifted earth and transported building materials.

The authorities say they have kept a careful watch to ensure the precious remains are preserved during work on the airport, which President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has promised will be inaugurated in March 2022.

Stuck in mud

Experts believe the mammoths were drawn to the area by food and water provided by a lake that existed in prehistoric times.

“The place had a lot of natural resources, enough for these individuals to survive for a long time and for many generations,” said archaeologist Araceli Yanez.

In winter the lake area became muddy, trapping the giant mammals who starved, she said.

“It attracted a large number of mammoths, and they got stuck, as is the case with this individual, and died here,” Yanez added.

The lake was also very good for preserving the remains.

Mexico has been the scene of surprising mammoth discoveries before. In the 1970s, workers building the Mexico City subway found a mammoth skeleton while digging on the capital’s north side.

In 2012, workers digging to build a wastewater treatment plant outside the capital discovered hundreds of bones belonging to mammoths and other Ice Age animals.

And last year archaeologists found the skeletons of 14 mammoths in Tultepec, near the site of the new airport.

Some bore signs that the animals had been hunted, leading experts to conclude at the time that they had found “the world’s first mammoth trap.”

The government began construction of the new aviation hub in 2019 at the Santa Lucia military airbase, months after cancelling work on another partially completed airport.

Lopez Obrador, who ran on a pro-austerity, anti-graft platform, had criticized that project championed by his predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto as an unnecessary mega-project marred by corruption.

His administration has tasked the military with overseeing the construction of the new airport, which will house a museum showcasing the mammoth skeletons and other ancient remains.

Aztec altar with human ashes uncovered in Mexico City

Sometime after Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in modern-day Mexico City in 1521, an indigenous household that survived the bloody Spanish invasion arranged an altar including incense and a pot with human ashes.

The remains of that elaborate display have been unearthed by archaeologists near what is today Garibaldi Plaza, famed for its revelry and mariachi music, Mexico’s culture ministry said on Tuesday.

In the wake of the fall of Tenochtitlan, likely within the years of 1521 and 1610, the offering from the family of the Mexica people was made “to bear witness to the ending of a cycle of their lives and of their civilization,” the culture ministry said in a statement.

The interior patio where rituals took place is about four meters (13 feet) below ground level, according to a team of archaeologists who spent three months analyzing the site.

They found various layers of what had been home over the centuries, the statement said, along with 13 incense burners, five bowls, a cup, a plate and a pot with cremated skeletal remains.

The finding coincides with the 500-year anniversary of the Spanish conquest, which Mexico’s government commemorated by building a towering replica of the Templo Mayor, the Aztec civilization’s most sacred site, in downtown Mexico City.

A number of ancient discoveries in the Mexico City area in recent years, including some in the capital’s bustling downtown, have shone light on the Aztec civilization. They include the remains of a ceremonial ball court, a sacrificial wolf adorned with gold and a tower of human skulls.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had previously sought an apology from Spain and the Vatican for human rights abuses committed during the conquest of what is modern-day Mexico.

Four Of North America’s Oldest Human Skulls Don’t Look Much Alike

The earliest humans in North America were far more diverse than previously realized, according to a new study of human remains found within one of the world’s most extensive underwater cave systems.

The remains, discovered in the caverns of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, represent just four of the earliest North Americans, all of whom lived between 9,000 and 13,000 years ago. They’re important because North American remains from the first millennia of human habitation in the Americas are rare, said study leader Mark Hubbe, an anthropologist at The Ohio State University. Fewer than two dozen individuals have been discovered, he added.

What makes the four individuals from Mexico interesting is that none of them is quite alike. One resembles peoples from the Arctic, another has European features and one looks much like early South American skulls, while the last doesn’t share features with anyone population.

“The differences we see among these Mexican skulls are on the same magnitude as the most different populations nowadays,” Hubbe told Live Science.

The settlement of the Americas is a complicated topic, shrouded in mystery because of the dearth of archaeological findings from 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, which is probably when the first humans set foot on the continent. South America has more early human remains than North America, Hubbe said. The skulls found in South America are typically quite similar to one another, sharing features of skull measurements with indigenous Australians and Africans.

This doesn’t mean that the South Americans had ancestors who came directly from Australia or Africa, Hubbe cautions. Rather, the shared features reveal a shared common ancestry between ancient South Americans and the peoples of Australia and Africa. 

“The [skull] morphologies in Asia changed a lot in the last 10,000 years,” Hubbe said. “Everyone who came [to the Americas] before 10,000 years ago would look a lot like early modern humans out of Africa and Australia.”

Because the path to South America must have included pit stops in North America or along the Pacific coast, the assumption has long been that early people in South America looked a lot like early people in North America. But the new research suggests otherwise, Hubbe said. Instead, early North American populations look far more diverse than early South American populations.

“For whatever reason, when they went to South America, part of this diversity disappeared,” Hubbe said.

The extensive caves of Quintana Roo are now mostly underwater. But about 12,000 years ago, during the end of the Pleistocene epoch and the beginning of the Holocene, sea levels were lower and the caves were dry. Some of the early inhabitants of Mexico seemed to use the caves as burial places, deliberately placing bodies inside. Some other skeletons discovered in the caves appear to indicate that those people’s deaths may have been accidental.

Of the four skulls studied in the new research, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, one came from a young adult woman who lived around 13,000 years ago; one belonged to a young adult male from the same era; one was from a middle-aged woman who lived between about 9,000 and 12,000 years ago, and the fourth was that of a middle-aged man from around 10,000 years ago. Hubbe and his co-authors used computed tomography (CT) scanning to re-create digital, 3D images of the skulls. They then marked various landmarks on the skulls, such as the bottom of the nose or top of the eye orbits. Sizes and distances between landmarks were then used to compare the skulls to larger data sets of measurements from different populations of people around the world.

There are limitations to working with the data of only four people, Hubbe said – after all, any given individual can be an outlier compared with the rest of his or her community. But, in an attempt to downplay any individual quirks of the skulls, the researchers focused only on the components of the measurements that explained the majority of the variations between skulls. By limiting the analysis to only major variations, they could avoid putting too much weight on smaller differences between skulls.

They found that the 13,000-year-old young woman had features that most closely matched Arctic North Americans from Greenland and Alaska. The young man from 13,000 years ago, on the other hand, looked most similar to people from European populations. The middle-aged female from between 9,000 and 12,000 years ago looked much like the earliest settlers of South America. Finally, the middle-aged man from around 10,000 years ago showed no clear pattern. He had features seen in several American and Asian populations.

The findings are important because they provide new information on the earliest Americans, said Richard Jantz, an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee who was not involved in the research. The skulls are diverse, he said, though he noted that all but the young man from 13,000 years ago had Asian or Native American affinities, so the differences shouldn’t be overexaggerated.

The new information complicates the fuzzy picture of who the first Americans were and how the earliest migrations worked.

North America could have been more diverse than South America if there were a consistent flow of people – and new genes – into North America, but only one or two big movements of populations through the funnel of Mexico into South America, Hubbe said.

“We cannot test this at this point,” he said.

That story also contradicts the genomic data researchers have collected. Genomics suggests that all Native Americans (with the exception of a few later migrants) descend from a single migration of people from Asia. But research-based on phenotype – the way people looked – suggests multiple migration events, creating a population that got regular injections of diversity. 

“I think if America consisted of a homogenous population 10,000 or 15,000 years ago, that drawing skulls at random from it would not produce as much variation as you see,” Jantz said. 

In today’s humans, Jantz said, genomics data and skull shape data generally mesh well — people with similar ancestry tend to show similarities in their skull measurements. So far, the same does not seem to be the case for the earliest Americans. But there are limitations in data on both the genetic and the archaeological sites, Jantz said. Genomics researchers have only three ancient DNA samples from North America, and modern Native Americans’ genetic profiles have been complicated by genocide and mixture with Europeans. Researchers who study skull morphology have only a handful of bones to work with, as well. 

“To me,” Jantz said, “the biggest challenge is reconciling conflicting lines of evidence.”

Maya Farmers May Have Planned for Population Growth

For years, experts in climate science and ecology have held up the agricultural practices of the ancient Maya as prime examples of what not to do. 

“There’s a narrative that depicts the Maya as people who engaged in unchecked agricultural development,” said Andrew Scherer, an associate professor of anthropology at Brown University. “The narrative goes: The population grew too large, the agriculture scaled up, and then everything fell apart.”

But a new study, authored by Scherer, students at Brown and scholars at other institutions, suggests that that narrative doesn’t tell the full story. Using drones and lidar, a remote sensing technology, a team led by Scherer and Charles Golden of Brandeis University surveyed a small area in the Western Maya Lowlands situated at today’s border between Mexico and Guatemala.

Scherer’s lidar survey — and, later, boots-on-the-ground surveying — revealed extensive systems of sophisticated irrigation and terracing in and outside the region’s towns, but no huge population booms to match.

The findings demonstrate that between 350 and 900 A.D., some Maya kingdoms were living comfortably, with sustainable agricultural systems and no demonstrated food insecurity. “It’s exciting to talk about the really large populations that the Maya maintained in some places; to survive for so long with such density was a testament to their technological accomplishments,” Scherer said.

“But it’s important to understand that that narrative doesn’t translate across the whole of the Maya region. People weren’t always living cheek to jowl. Some areas that had the potential for agricultural development were never even occupied.”

The research group’s findings were published in the journal Remote Sensing. When Scherer’s team embarked on the lidar survey, they weren’t necessarily attempting to debunk long-held assumptions about Maya agricultural practices. Rather, their primary motivation was to learn more about the infrastructure of a relatively understudied region.

While some parts of the western Maya area are well studied, such as the well-known site of Palenque, others are less understood, owing to the dense tropical canopy that has long hidden ancient communities from view.  It wasn’t until 2019, in fact, that Scherer and colleagues uncovered the kingdom of Sak T’zi’, which archaeologists had been trying to find for decades.

The team chose to survey a rectangle of land connecting three Maya kingdoms: Piedras Negras, La Mar and Sak Tz’i’, whose political capital was centred on the archaeological site of  Lacanjá Tzeltal.  Despite being roughly 15 miles away from one another as the crow flies, these three urban centres had very different population sizes and governing power, Scherer said.

“Today, the world has hundreds of different nation-states, but they’re not really each other’s equals in terms of the leverage they have in the geopolitical landscape,” Scherer said. “This is what we see in the Maya empire as well.”

Scherer explained that all three kingdoms were governed by an ajaw, or a lord — positioning them as equals, in theory. But Piedras Negras, the largest kingdom, was led by a k’uhul ajaw, a “holy lord,” a special honorific not claimed by the lords of La Mar and Sak Tz’i’. La Mar and Sak Tz’i’ weren’t exactly equal peers, either: While La Mar was much more populous than the Sak T’zi’ capital Lacanjá Tzeltal, the latter was more independent, often switching alliances and never appearing to be subordinate to other kingdoms, suggesting it had greater political autonomy.

The lidar survey showed that, despite their differences, these three kingdoms boasted one major similarity: agriculture that yielded a food surplus.

“What we found in the lidar survey points to strategic thinking on the Maya’s part in this area,” Scherer said.

“We saw evidence of long-term agricultural infrastructure in an area with relatively low population density — suggesting that they didn’t create some crop fields late in the game as a last-ditch attempt to increase yields, but rather that they thought a few steps ahead.”

In all three kingdoms, the lidar revealed signs of what the researchers call “agricultural intensification” — the modification of land to increase the volume and predictability of crop yields. Agricultural intensification methods in these Maya kingdoms, where the primary crop was maize, included building terraces and creating water management systems with dams and channelled fields. Penetrating through the often-dense jungle, the lidar showed evidence of extensive terracing and expansive irrigation channels across the region, suggesting that these kingdoms were not only prepared for population growth but also likely saw food surpluses every year.

“It suggests that by the Late Classic Period, around 600 to 800 A.D., the area’s farmers were producing more food than they were consuming,” Scherer said. “It’s likely that much of the surplus food was sold at urban marketplaces, both as producer and as part of prepared foods like tamales and gruel, and used to pay tribute, a tax of sorts, to local lords.”

Scherer said he hopes the study provides scholars with a more nuanced view of the ancient Maya — and perhaps even offers inspiration for members of the modern-day agricultural sector who are looking for sustainable ways to grow food for an ever-growing global population. Today, he said, significant parts of the region are being cleared for cattle ranching and palm oil plantations. But in areas where people still raise corn and other crops, they report that they have three harvests a year — and it’s likely that those high yields may be due in part to the channelling and other modifications that the ancient Maya made to the landscape. 

“In conversations about contemporary climate or ecological crises, the Maya are often brought up as a cautionary tale: ‘They screwed up; we don’t want to repeat their mistakes,’” Scherer said. “But maybe the Maya were more forward-thinking than we give them credit for. Our survey shows there’s a good argument to be made that their agricultural practices were very much sustainable.”

Aside from Scherer and Golden, study authors include Brown PhD students Mark Agostini, Morgan Clark, Joshua Schnell and Bethany Whitlock; recent Brown PhD graduates Mallory Matsumoto, now an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and Alejandra Roche Recinos, now a visiting assistant professor at Reed College; and researchers from McMaster University and the University of Florida. The research was funded in part by the Alphawood Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Chaco Canyon Polydactyly: A Thousand-Year-Old Foot Fetish?

If you’re a 12-toed guy struggling to make it in this ten-toed world, you may want to find a time machine and travel back about a thousand years to the Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.

According to new research, a group of people once lived there who respected, honoured and exalted those among them with an extra piggy on a foot.

We found that people with six toes, especially, were common and seemed to be associated with important ritual structures and high-status objects like turquoise.

Anthropologist Patricia Crown of the University of New Mexico co-authored a study, published this week in American Antiquity, about a high preponderance of six-toed people – the condition is known as polydactyly – among a prehistoric Pueblo culture in the Chaco Canyon.

Of the 96 skeletons of Chacoan people found at the canyon’s sacred Pueblo Bonito site, 3 of them had an extra toe on the right side of their right foot. That’s 15.5 times the average occurrence of polydactyly among modern Native Americans.

What gave the Chacoans another toenail to trim with a flint? Previous research on polydactyly shows it’s a dominant, non-recessive, hereditary trait that is not caused by inbreeding nor a genetic disease.

Study co-author Kerriann Marden suspects prenatal exposure to something hazardous, either environmental or possibly a food the pregnant mother ate. With the way the extra-toed were treated, perhaps the mothers may have even tried to have polydactyly babies.

The Mayans were known to worship six-toed people (and others with body anomalies) as gods, but the Chacoans weren’t that extreme. Handprints and footprints with extra digits appear on walls in rooms used for rituals and ceremonies.

One skeleton was buried with jewellery on the six-toed foot but nothing on the other one. Special extra-wide sandals were found with space for the extra toe.

The sandals and artwork may be the key to why the extra toes got respect.

The Chacoans art seemed to be focused on hands and feet and they appear to have paid special attention to sandals and footwear in general. Perhaps that fixation made those with two pinkie toes special.

Perhaps it was just because they could step on more ants.