The artifacts are believed to have been used in fertility rituals by the Tlacotepehua people during the Postclassic period, which spanned 950 to 1520 CE. They included perforated snail shells, stone disks, and a set of bracelets that were wrapped around the cave's stalagmites centuries ago, “like a ring on a finger.”
Katia Pavlova/National Institute of Anthropology and History. Part of the vast interior of Tlayococ Cave.
According to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the objects were found in Tlayococ Cave by Russian speleologist Ekaterina Katya Pavlova and her guide Adrian Beltran Dimas. No one has likely descended into the cave for 500 years, although locals use it as a source of water and bat guano for their gardens.
Dimas and Pavlova, who has been exploring and mapping the caves for six years, had traveled deep into the cave, picking their way through narrow passages and pools of water. During one of their breaks, they suddenly noticed a collection of objects nearby, which Pavlova initially dismissed as recent trash.
Then Pavlova realized that she and Dimas had stumbled upon something much more significant: a collection of 14 artifacts that appeared to have been left in the cave about 500 years ago.
“It was very exciting and incredible,” she shared. “[We] were lucky here.”
After photographing the objects, Pavlova and Dimas contacted the National Institute of Anthropology and History to study the site in more detail./p h2>14 Artifacts Found in Tlayococ Cave and Their Possible Uses/h2 p>Archaeologists, Together with a Local Historian, Undertook the Long Journey to Tlayoc Cave
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