Mexican Footprints May Be 25,000 Years Old

Five human footprints that may be as old as 25,000 years have been discovered in Chihuahua in northern Mexico. Specialists say they could belong to the first men who lived in this region.

The footprints correspond to three adults and a child that probably lived in the caves that are located in the sierra, in the Valle de Ahuatos, eight kilometers from the town of Creel, in Chihuahua, according to Art Daily.

According to morphoscopic analysis, Footprint 1, by its longitude of 26 centimeters, corresponds to the right foot of a male adult, while Footprint 2 belongs to the left foot of another adult, but the gender is difficult to determine. Footprint 3 was made by the right foot of an infant three or four years old.

Footprints 4 and 5 are from another adult and represent the only pair that corresponds to the same person. These footprints are significant as they have six toes, which may be due a malformation, researchers said.

Click here for the complete article.

Photo shows one of the prints.

Tomb May Link Zoque and Mayan Cultures

Pyramid containing the ancient tomb in Chiapa de Corzo.

Archaeologists are hoping the 2,700-year-old pyramid in Chiapa de Corzo in southern Mexico can help settle debate on origins of the mysterious Zoque civilization.

The pyramid tomb ~ see post below for more information ~ is a window into how two unique cultures emerged from the Olmec, one of the oldest civilizations in the New World. The Olmec fanned out from their Gulf of Mexico homeland around 1200 BC and influenced many later Mesoamerican civilizations.

In the centuries prior to the construction of the recently unearthed tomb, Chiapa de Corzo likely was a large village along a major trade route operated by the Olmec from their capital city, La Venta, on the Gulf Coast. As Chiapa de Corzo gained wealth and power it began to assert its own identity.

The newly discovered tomb ~ which includes Olmec and Zoque traits ~ suggests this transition was well underway by 700 BC. Emerging from the influence of the Olmec, the nascent Zoque culture at Chiapa de Corzo may have been influencing other cultures, including the Maya Empire.

Click here for the National Geographic article.

Tomb Believed Oldest in Mesoamerica

Body in the tomb is believed to have been a high priest or ruler.

Archaeologists in southern Mexico have discovered a 2,700-year-old tomb that may be the oldest such burial documented in Mesoamerica. It holds a man about 50 years old, buried with jade collars, pyrite and obsidian artefacts and ceramic vessels.

Archaeologist Emiliano Gallaga said the tomb dates to between 500 and 700 BC. “We think this is one of the earliest discoveries of the use of a pyramid as a tomb, not only as a religious site or temple,” he said.

The tomb was found at a site built by Zoque Indians in Chiapa de Corzo. It may be almost 1,000 years older than the better-known pyramid tomb of the Mayan ruler Pakal at the Palenque archaeological site, also in Chiapas.

The man is thought to have been a high priest or ruler of Chiapa de Corzo, a prominent settlement at the time. The body of a one-year-old child was laid carefully over the man's body inside the tomb, while that of a 20-year-old male was tossed into the chamber with less care, perhaps sacrificed at the time of burial.

Click here for the complete Guardian article.

Click here for a lengthier New York Times article.

Digital Images Recreate Aztec's Templo Mayor

Digital visualization of Templo Mayor prior to destruction.

Templo Mayor plaza viewed from the Temple of the Sun.

Digital images now provide what is considered a reasonable concept of the appearance of a spectacular 16th century Aztec temple in what is today Mexico City.

Antonio Serrato-Combe, professor of architecture at the University of Utah, devoted two decades to digitally recreating ancient structures of the Aztecs. His major accomplishment is the construction of the Templo Mayor Precinct in Tenochtitlan, in what is modern day Mexico City. Destroyed by Hernando Cortes in 1521, the Templo Mayor was the center of Aztec ceremonial life and served as the setting for highly energized rituals.

According to PhysOrg.com:

The question of what the Aztec Templo Mayor Precinct looked like has piqued the curiosity of many, including Serrato-Combe. For more than two decades, he has been trying to solve the mystery on how the capital of the Aztecs looked by using the technology and tools of architecture.

"The Aztec capital was a thriving metropolis planned and built according to principles that not only understood and applied critical environmental issues, but added holistic concepts as well," explains Serrato-Combe. "The Aztecs did not compartmentalize the arts. The final result was a unique combination of architecture, sculpture, painting, costume, wall and sand painting, pottery, masks, amulets, all into one expression. I envy those individuals who had the opportunity to experience those environments."

Combe's research and visualizations are centered on historic and archaeological studies conducted on-site in Mexico City, in conjunction with additional extensive research, very time consuming, due to the complexity and diverse nature of the historic and archeological record.

Click here for the PhysOrg.com article with larger images.

View from top of Huitzilopochtli shrine.

Aztec King's Tomb Still Eludes Archaeologists

Archaeologist cleans the Tlaltecuhtli monolith, looking for blood samples that would indicate human sacrifices at the site.

Archeologists continue to dig in the dirt and black ooze under Mexico City in hopes of finding the burial place of one of the last Aztec rulers.

"They keep finding astonishing things as they inch their way along," says David Carrasco, a Harvard University historian working with Mexican archeologists at the Templo Mayor.

But the great find – a royal tomb – has eluded scientists. The city of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that lies beneath the modern Mexico City, was founded on an island in the middle of a saltwater lake.

A high water table makes progress difficult. "When you dig a pit or a trench, you find very quickly the water level and cannot continue if you don't have a powerful pumping system," says Leonardo Lopez, the archeologist heading the excavation.

Since he uncovered a carved monolith of the ferocious earth deity Tlaltecuhtli in 2006, there has been intense speculation, based on historical writings and their own discoveries, that the four-metre-by-3.5-metre stone covers a royal tomb.

The stone monolith is inscribed with dates and language associated with Ahuitzotl, a king who died in 1502. Radar indicates "anomalies" under the monolith, which could be funerary spaces.

Though archeological finds in Mexico City date back to 1790, no one has ever found the burial site of an Aztec king.

"Everyone wants us to dig faster," says Lopez, "and this is the only thing we cannot do. You can only excavate once an archeological site. We are not treasure hunters but scientists, and we have a professional responsibility to record the slightest artifact in the best way."

Click here for the Toronto Star article.

Ancient Native Americans Decorated Teeth

Ancient skull found in Chiapas, Mexico, displays embedded gems and notched teeth.

Sophisticated dentistry allowed Native Americans to decorate their teeth with gems, notches and grooves as far back as 2,500 years ago. The finding is based on a survey of thousands of teeth from collections in Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

Dental decoration was popular predominantly with men. "They were not marks of social class" but instead meant for pure decoration, José Concepción Jiménez, an anthropologist at the institute, told National Geographic.

The early dentists used a drill-like device with a hard stone such as obsidian, which is capable of puncturing bone."It's possible some type of [herb based] anesthetic was applied prior to drilling to blunt any pain," Jiménez said.

The ornamental stones—including jade—were attached with an adhesive made out of natural resins, such as plant sap, which was mixed with other chemicals and crushed bones.

The dentists likely had a sophisticated knowledge of tooth anatomy. For example, they knew how to drill into teeth without hitting the pulp inside. "They didn't want to generate an infection or provoke the loss of a tooth," Jiménez said.

Click here for the National Geographic article.

Balsa Rafts Permitted Ancient American Trading

Dutch envoy Joris van Spilbergen sketched this South American balsa raft in 1619.

An MIT doctoral candidate and her colleagues may have solved the mystery of why a specific style of ancient metalwork appears in South America and in western Mexico, but nowhere in between. Leslie Dewan contends Ecuadorean traders a thousand years ago sailed regularly to western Mexico and back ~ a round trip of 3,800 miles ~ on sail-bearing balsa rafts.

According to Discover Magazine:

Archaeologists have long wondered why copper work and other metalwork in a style typical of ancient South America appears in western Mexico but nowhere in between the two areas. This absence suggested a sea-based trade, so Dewan’s group decided to explore whether such lengthy voyages were feasible.

They based their mathematical study of seaworthiness on 16th-century European explorers’ descriptions of Native American trading vessels in western Mexico. The explorers wrote of seeing rectangular, two-sailed vessels made of balsa, a wood native to Ecuador, tied together with a hemplike fiber. Reaching about 35 feet in length, the rafts could probably have borne up to 30 metric tons of cargo—as much as 19th-century barges did in the Erie Canal.

Dewan’s team also evaluated the role of wind and water currents, concluding that the traders may have spent a few months in Mexico and returned when currents shifted. Meanwhile, her team is preparing to construct an actual-size model for the trip from Ecuador to Mexico, as they theorize it was done 1,300 years ago.

Click here for the Discover Magazine article.
Click here for Leslie Dewan’s description of her project.
Click here for a similar Ecuadorian project called the Manteno Expedition.

More Relics Found Near Mysterious Pyramid

Archaeologists continue to debate the origin of the mysterious Huapalcalco pyramid in the central Mexican state of Hildalgo.


Sculptures recently found in central Mexico point to a previously unknown culture that likely built a mysterious pyramid in the valley of Tulancingo, a major canyon that drops off into Mexico's Gulf Coast.

Most of the 41 artifacts "do not fit into any of the known cultures of the Valley of Tulancingo, or the highlands of central Mexico," said Carlos Hernández, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History in the central state of Hidalgo.

Many of the figures are depicted in a sitting position, with their hands placed on their knees. Some have headdresses or conical hats with snakes at the base, which could represent Ehécatl-Quetzalcóatl, the Aztec god of the wind. One figure shows a man emerging from the jaws of a jaguar. They are also made of flat stucco—a combination of fine sand, lime, and water—and painted blue or green to the give the appearance of jade.

All of the artifacts date to the Epiclassic period between A.D. 600 to 900.

Found Near Mysterious Pyramid

Some of the artifacts were also found near the mysterious Huapalcalco pyramid in Hidalgo, whose origin has been a source of debate among archaeologists. Its proportions, along with smaller structures that were painted black and white, do not correspond to the Toltec or Teotihuacan cultures of the same area and time period.

The Teotihuacan people, who lived from 400 B.C. to A.D. 700, constructed one of the largest pyramid complexes in the pre-Hispanic Americas, which refers to cultures that lived on the continent before the Spanish conquest of the Western Hemipshere.

The Toltecs, who came afterward, were made up of several groups of South Americans that together formed an empire famous for its artists and builders in the Teotihuacan capital of Tula from A.D. 900 until the 1100s.

Click here for complete National Geographic article.