Historic remains Young man of Chan Hol recovered by cave divers

The remains of a prehistoric child that was found in an underwater cave and could re-write the history of the Americas have been recovered by a team of divers.

The Young Man of Chan Hol, as the skeleton is known among the scientific community is one of the earliest human skeletons of America, dating back more than 10,000 years ago.

It was recovered by Mexican specialists from a flooded cave in Quintana Roo.



It is among the oldest remains studied as part of a National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) project.

After three years of studies conducted underwater to prevent information loss, the Chan Hol skeleton was removed from the water by a team of specialists headed by biologist Arturo Gonzalez, coordinator of the project Study of Pre Ceramic Men of Yucatan Peninsula and director of Museo del Desierto de Coahuila (Museum of the Desert of Coahuila).

The Young Man of Chan Hol, named after the cenote it was found in, was recovered in a 542 meters long and 8.3 deep cave where stalagmites abound, and is reached after going through flooded, dark and difficult labyrinths.

UNAM (National University of Mexico) physical anthropologists that studied the remains think they were placed in the cave after a funerary ceremony that took place by the end of Pleistocene, when the sea level was 150 meters lower, before the caves, probably walked by this person, got flooded.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History said 60 per cent of the skeleton was collected, inlcuding bones of four extremities, vertebrae, ribs and the skull, as well as several teeth. Normally, in cases of 10,000 year old samples only the skull or jawbone is found, and sometimes, 20 or 30 percent of the skeleton.

Arturo Gonzalez, paleo biology specialist, said: "Our dating confirmed that skeletons collected in Quintana Roo caves belonged to members of Pre Clovis groups and are part of the few human rests found from the American Terminal Pleistocene, with physical features similar to those of people from Central and South Asia, suggesting there were several migrations to our continent”.

The first physical anthropology report, conducted by physical anthropologists Alejandro Terrazas and Martha Benavente, from the UNAM (National University of Mexico) Institute of Anthropological Investigations, indicates the skeleton belonged to a young adult, probably a male; legs were flexed to the left and arms extended to both sides of the body, which is a “new fact to be studied”, since no skeleton had been found before in this position.

The remains were discovered in 2006 by two German divers exploring the Chan Hol cave.