Mexico Mass Grave May Be Aztec Resistance Fighters

An archeologist works over a skeleton at the site of a mass grave found in the Tlateloco...

An archeologist works over a skeleton at the site of a mass grave found in the Tlateloco neighborhood in Mexico City, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009. Archeologists digging in a ruined pyramid in downtown Mexico City found a mass grave that may hold the skeletal remains of the last holdouts among the Aztecs who fought the Spanish conquerors under Cortes.

(Gregory Bull/AP Photo )
More Photos

Archaeologists digging in a ruined pyramid in downtown Mexico City said Tuesday they found a mass grave that may hold the skeletal remains of the Aztec holdouts who fought conquistador Hernan Cortes.

The unusual burial holds the carefully arrayed skeletons of at least 49 adult Indians who were buried in the remains of a pyramid razed by the Spaniards during the 1521 conquest of the Aztec capital.

The pyramid complex, in the city's Tlatelolco square, was the site of the last Indian resistance to the Spaniards during the monthslong battle for the city.

Archaeologist Salvador Guilliem, the leader of the excavation for Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, said the Indians might have been killed during Cortes' war or during one of the uprisings that continued after the conquest.

Guilliem said many burials have been found at the site with the remains of Indians who died during epidemics that swept the Aztec capital in the years after the conquest and killed off much of the Indian population.

Related

PHOTOS: Savor Mexico: Culinary Adventures

PHOTOS: Mexican Drug Gangs' Weapons of Choice

PHOTOS: Mexico's Ancient World

But those burials were mostly hurried, haphazard affairs in which remains were jumbled together in pits regardless of age or gender.

The burial reported Tuesday is different. The dead had many of the characteristics of warriors: All but four were young men, most were tall and several showed broken bones that had mended.

The men also were carefully buried Christian-style, lying on their backs with arms crossed over their chests, though many appear to have been wrapped up in large maguey cactus leaves, rather than placed in European coffins.

The mass grave contained evidence of an Aztec-like ritual in which offerings such as incense and animals were set alight in an incense burner, but Spanish elements including buttons and a bit of glass also were present.

Susan Gillespie, an archaeologist at the University of Florida, said the grave was unusual, both because it was unlikely the Spanish would have bothered with such careful burial of Aztec warriors, and because the Indians themselves would have been more likely to cremate any honored dead.