Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has recovered several human fossils from the Sac Actun underground river complex in Quintana Roo, Mexico.
The remains were transferred to the Bioarchaeology Group of INAH’s Directorate of Archaeological Salvage in Mexico City, where experts will conduct a forensic and anthropological study.
The Secretary of Culture of the Mexican Government, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, stated that “the transfer and study of these human remains will represent an important step forward in understanding the first inhabitants of our country.”
Arturo Talavera González, who leads the study, estimates that around 40% of the skeleton has been recovered, including parts of the skull, some ribs and vertebrae, the clavicles, the right scapula, fragments of the hip bone, and long bones from the upper and lower limbs.
Preliminary observations are based on two diagnostic bones—the angle of the mastoid process and the thickening of the frontal bone above the eye sockets—which led the anthropologist to determine that the individual was male. Based on the long bones, he estimated that the individual had a height of approximately 1.45 to 1.50 metres and died around the age of 20 to 25 years.
The skeleton was originally found deep in a cenote chamber about 200 metres into the cave system. Some of the charcoal deposits around indicate human activity, suggesting the site may have operated as a shelter or ritual space between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, when the environment was a dry cave and sea levels were very low.
“During this period, the Yucatán Peninsula was a vast grassland with shrubs, grasses, few trees, and megafauna, so caves served as shelters for the first inhabitants. There were hearths, which indicates that the cave was active and that, probably, when this person died, they used the chamber as a natural burial crypt, which speaks to certain beliefs and funerary rites,” added González.
Header Image Credit : INAH
