"The two groups must have been very different in aspect and culture. These dental and cranial differences suggest that "the Yucatán settlers formed a group which was isolated from the hunters and gatherers that populated central Mexico at the end of the Pleistocene," an epoch that ended about 11,700 years ago, Stinnesbeck said. In contrast, other populations of early Americans tended to have worn teeth without cavities, indicating that these people likely ate hard foods that were low in sugar, the researchers said. This suggests that this population had a diet high in sugar, likely from tubers and fruits, sweet cactus, or honey from the native, stingless bees, Stinnesbeck said. In addition, all of the Tulum cave skulls, including the newfound woman's skull, had cavities in their teeth. This finding reinforces the conclusions of another recent study in the journal PLOS One, which also looked at the remains of ancient people (although not Chan Hol 3) who lived on the Yucatán Peninsula. In effect, this suggests that there were at least two different groups of humans living in what is now Mexico at the end of the last ice age, Rennie said. He noted that Chan Hol 3 had a slightly longer and narrower brain case (the part of the skull that holds the brain) and a slightly narrower face than other ancient people in Mexico.
Like other Tulum cave skeletons, Chan Hol 3 has a distinctive skull.Īn in-depth cranial analysis of 452 skulls, taken from 10 different early American populations, showed that "the ancient skeletons from the Yucatán (including the newly discovered Chan Hol 3) had skulls that were different than any of the other places we compared to," Rennie said. Related: Tiny & nasty: Images of things that make us sick In the future, the researchers plan to put the woman's skull in a CT (computed tomography) scanner, which will help them diagnose these strange lesions and traumas, Rennie said. It's even possible that "these skull deformations were caused by erosion of the skull in the cave," Stinnesbeck noted. Or maybe the woman had severe bone inflammation or periostitis, an inflamed periosteum, the connective tissue that surrounds bone, Stinnesbeck said. If that was the case, "she would have had an inflamed area where the infection was that would have been very sore to the touch, with possible breaks in the skin," study co-researcher Samuel Rennie, a biological and forensic anthropologist, told Live Science in an email. Perhaps she had Treponema peritonitis, a bacterial disease related to syphilis, which would make this the oldest known instance of this disease in the Americas, the researchers said. It's even less straightforward how her skull developed its dents and crater-like deformities, the researchers said. "There are no signs of healing of these wounds, but it is still difficult to say whether she died from these wounds or survived the blows some time," he said. The three injuries on the woman's skull hint that she had a violent end, Stinnesbeck said. While the skeleton is only about 30% complete, the researchers were able to discern that it belonged to a woman who stood roughly 5 feet, 4 inches (1.64 m) tall and was about 30 years old when she died.
So, an international team got to work analyzing the mysterious skeleton, dubbed Chan Hol 3. But an analysis soon proved them wrong a comparison of the new bones to old photos of Chan Hol 2 showed "that the two must represent different individuals," Stinnesbeck said. The newfound bones were located just 460 feet (140 meters) away from the Chan Hol 2 site, prompting archaeologists to assume that the divers had found the missing Chan Hol 2 remains.
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