Evidence of Terminal Pleistocene/Earliest Holocene Water Collection in the Now-submerged Caves of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

For 25 years, divers exploring caves in Quintana Roo, Mexico, have been finding remains of humans who entered in the late Pleistocene or early Holocene. One of these was a young woman (Naia) of terminal Pleistocene age found with fossils of extinct mammals in the pit or natural trap of Hoyo Negro, 600 meters from a ground-level entrance.   What were people doing far inside these dark tunnels? In 2023, our fieldwork focused on this question. We found disruption attributable to humans, including broken speleothems, chipped flowstone, and fire-altered rock, showing that Naia wasn’t the site’s only human visitor. The strongest evidence, though, was numerous, deep, rope marks at the rim above an ephemeral pool on the pit floor. Radiocarbon dating of nearby charcoal placed this water-gathering activity between 11,610 - 10,840 cal BP. Although she died centuries earlier, Naia was likely enticed to her death by the promise of water.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

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Contact(s): Nicole Haddow