“Ancient Mysteries Unearthed: Discovery of 60 Mammoth Remains near Ingenious Human Traps in Mexico’s Prehistoric Past!”
Experts posit that these particular mammoths died after they became trapped in the mud surrounding the lake and they wonder whether prehistoric man might have benefited from these giant creatures’ misfortune or even hastened it.
“It is not ruled out that humans have taken advantage of these heavy animals, once they got stuck in the mud,” said Pedro Francisco Sánchez Nava, the institute’s national coordinator of archaeology.
INAH/Agence France-Presse via Getty imagesMammoth fossils found within the manmade trap at the Tultepec site.
Researchers used to believe that early man ate mammoth infrequently and likely after the animals had already died. But according to Sánchez Nava, “In fact, it may have been part of their daily diet.”
Similar excavations nearby have raised the possibility that humans even actively hunted mammoths. Only six miles away from Lake Xaltocan is a landfill in the town of Tultepec where just last year archaeologists found the remains of 14 mammoths in what looked like a 15,000-year-old manmade trap.
Together, these discoveries suggest that early humans didn’t just wait for mammoths to die in order to scavenge their bodies for food, but that they may have actively hunted and trapped them.
“It was thought they frightened them into getting stuck in swamps and then waited for them to die,” explained Luis Córdoba Barradas, another archaeologist with the institute. “This is evidence of direct attacks on mammoths… In Tultepec we can see there was the intention to hunt and make use of the mammoths.”
