'Trash' found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known cultureWhile investigating a cave high in the mountains of Mexico, a spelunker thought she had found a pile of trash from a modern-day litterbug. But upon closer inspection, she discovered that the "trash" was actually a cache of artifacts that may have been used in fertility rituals more than 500 years ago.
"I looked in, and it seemed like the cave continued. You had to hold your breath and dive a little to get through," speleologist Katiya Pavlova said in a translated statement. "That's when we discovered the two rings around the stalagmites."
The cave, called Tlayócoc, is in the Mexican state of Guerrero and about 7,800 feet (2,380 meters) above sea level. Meaning "Cave of Badgers" in the Indigenous Nahuatl language, Tlayócoc is known locally as a source of water and bat guano. In September 2023, Pavlova and local guide Adrián Beltrán Dimas ventured into the cave — possibly the first time anyone has entered it in about five centuries.
While taking a break to look around, Pavlova and Beltrán were shocked to discover 14 artifacts.
Among the artifacts were four shell bracelets, a giant decorated snail shell (genus Strombus), two complete stone disks and six disk fragments, and a piece of carbonized wood. Pavlova and Beltrán immediately contacted Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which sent archaeologists to recover the artifacts in March.
Given the arrangement of the bracelets — which had been looped over small, rounded stalagmites with "phallic connotations" — the archaeologists speculated that fertility rituals were likely performed in Tlayócoc cave, they said in the statement.
"For pre-Hispanic cultures, caves were sacred places associated with the underworld and considered the womb of the Earth," INAH archaeologist Miguel Pérez Negrete said in the statement.
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