The bone of the frontal sinuses, she said, is “so distinctive and unique that it works like a fingerprint,” and it matches the same bones in all the skeletons found at the site.

Penaloza is confident the skulls and other bones are those of locals. Fredrik Hallgren, who headed the archaeological team that discovered the skulls, said, “ Sulphur and strontium isotopes in the bones” should indicate “whether the skulls belong to locals or come from a distant place.” 1Toolsįive thousand skulls, bones, and bone fragments found in the ancient city of Teotihuacan near present-day Mexico City indicate the Teotihuacanos transformed the bones and skulls of their dead relatives into various tools and household items, such as “buttons, combs, needles, spatulas, and dozens of other everyday utensils.” The bodies of the dead had to be of adults “in their prime,” and they had to be relatively “fresh,” said Abigail Meza Penaloza, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who led the archaeological expedition. To date, neither hypothesis has been ruled out, but a chemical analysis of the skulls may confirm one or the other. One view of the mounted skulls suggests they “could have been used for secondary burial rites, in which individuals’ bones were removed from their graves and reinterred after their bodies decomposed.” Another conjecture contends “the skulls belonged to enemies killed in combat, not departed loved ones whose mourners gave them two funerals,” and were mounted and displayed on the stakes so they could be “carried home as war trophies.” The find is unique because it represents the only known instance of such a practice during this prehistoric period.

Two-one whole, the other broken in half-were pierced and mounted on stakes. Eleven 8,000-year-old skulls and skull fragments of adults and children, including infants, were discovered in a Stone Age settlement near Motala, Sweden.

Skull and bones ritual