Chiapas.- A decade ago, in the state of Chiapas human skulls and bones were found inside a cave scattered inside, before which the local authorities believed that it was a crime scene.
Given what they supposed to be a crime, the human bones found in the Comalapa cave, near the town of Carrizal, were transferred to Tuxtla Gutierrezcapital of Chiapas, so that they could be analyzed in a laboratory.
After more than 10 years, the investigation that included the participation of specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) concluded that, far from being a crime, the human skulls and bones located in the cave were part of a pre-Hispanic ritual .
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Throughout all these years, after various studies, INAH physical anthropologists have managed to come up with the hypothesis that inside the Chiapas cave there was an altar of the deadwhich is known by the name tzampantli.
After an extensive investigation, Javier Montes de Paz, a physical anthropologist and researchers at the INAH Center in Chiapas, has made public the results of the investigation that began a decade ago.
According to the specialist, despite the fact that they were found in the cave long bones of femurs, tibias and radiiit has not been possible to recognize a complete burial in any of the cases, but almost all the remains are whole skulls or fragments thereofwhich could suggest that most of these people were beheaded.
“We still do not have the exact calculation of how many there are, since some are very fragmented, but so far we can talk about approximately 150 skulls,” reported Montes de Paz.
Likewise, the INAH anthropologist pointed out that another factor that could support the existence of a tzompantli in the Chiapas cave is that they also found wooden poles lined upa characteristic element of this type of pre-Hispanic structures that were used to place the skulls in rows.
However, what has caused surprise among those in charge of the project is that the skulls, which mostly belonged to women, do not have the typical parietal and temporal perforations, although, Montes pointed out, this does not mean that they have not integrated a tzompantli, since there is evidence of other altars of this type.
“We have recognized the skeletal remains of three infants, but most of the bones are from adults and, so far, they are more from women than from men,” the expert explained, stressing that none of these preserves the denture.
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According to the INAH researchers, the joint study of the skulls located in the cave of Comalapa It still has many aspects to reveal, so a new excavation at the site is not ruled out.
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