Free Republic

The first settlers of the Yucatán Peninsula built bonfires 10,000 years ago in a cave now flooded with water, studies have confirmed. Charcoal samples from 14 prehistoric bonfires removed from the Ancestors Chamber of the Aktun Ha cenote, or natural sinkhole, in Tulum, Quintana Roo, in 2017 and 2018 were analyzed by scientists from the National Autonomous University (UNAM). They used a range of different methods including controlled heating experiments, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and carbon dating. The scientists determined that the bonfires were lit between 10,250 and 10,750 years ago. Corresponding to the early Holcene period - the current...

One of the earliest human skeletons of America, which belonged to a person that lived more than 10,000 years ago, in the Ice Age, was recovered by Mexican specialists from a flooded cave in Quintana Roo. The information it has lodged for centuries will reveal new data regarding the settlement of the Americas. The Young Man of Chan Hol, as the skeleton is known among the scientific community, due to the slight tooth wear it presents, which indicates an early age, is the fourth of our earliest ancestors found in the American Continent, and has been studied as part of...

A labyrinth filed with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves--some underwater-have been uncovered on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, archaeologists announced recently. The discover has experts wondering whether Maya legend inspired the construction of the underground complex--or vice versa. According to Maya myth, the souls of the dead had to follow a dog with night vision on a horrific and watery path and endure myriad challenges before they could rest in the afterlife.