Mexico ‘crime scene’ skulls turn out to be from A.D. 900

MEXICO CITY (AP) — When Mexican police found a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave near the Guatemalan border, they thought they were looking at a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital. It took a decade of tests and analysis to determine the skulls were from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200. The police weren’t being stupid; the border area in southern Chiapas state has long been plagued by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico were usually found in ceremonial plazas, not caves. But experts said Wednesday the victims had probably been decapitated and the skulls strung on wooden poles.