Mexican experts find hundreds of bones piled around skeleton in unprecedented Aztec burial

Handout/Reuters - Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) work on human bones found at the Templo Mayor in the heart of Mexico City July 16, 2012. Archaeologists found about 1,700 bones including ten skulls as well as a sacred Aztec tree trunk at the temple. The 500 year-old remains were uncovered last month at the Aztec empire's main Templo Mayor, near Zocalo square.

Researchers found the burial about five meters (15 feet) below the surface, next to the remains of what may have been a “sacred tree” at one edge of the plaza, the most sacred site of the Aztec capital.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the find was the first of its kind, noting the Aztecs were not known to use mass sacrifice or the reburial of bones as the customary ways to accompany the interment of a member of the ruling class.

University of Florida archaeologist Susan Gillespie, who was not involved in the project, called the find “unprecedented for the Aztec culture.”

She said Tuesday that when the Mayas interred sacrifice victims with royal burials, they were usually found as complete bodies, not jumbles of different bone types as in this case. And, except for special circumstances, the Aztecs, unlike other pre-Hispanic cultures, usually cremated members of the elite during their rule from 1325 to the Spanish conquest in 1521.

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