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At the end of the last ice long time , endemic miner in what is now the Yucatan Peninsula , Mexico risked life and arm — guess into pitch darkcavesilluminated only by fire — to draw out a prized mineral , a newfangled study finds .
That mineral wasn’tgold or diamonds , butred ocher , a valuable wax crayon - alike pigment that prehistorical multitude used for both ritualistic and unremarkable action , admit rock paintings , burial and perhaps even insect repellent .
With only a flashlight to light the way, a CINDAQ diver explores the ancient ochre mine. At the end of the last ice age, these caves were dry, but would have been devoid of any natural light.
No one knows , however , how the autochthonic people of the Yucatan Peninsula used ochre . After autochthonic people mined the caves , between about 12,000 and 10,000 years ago , the caves flooded as the ice age ended and ocean layer rose . But the still water in the caves preserved the miners ' camps — even the charred corpse of their fires — allowing archaeologist to see exactly how the mineral was extracted .
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The situation is basically " a sentence capsule underwater , " study lead generator Brandi MacDonald , an adjunct research professor in the Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Missouri Research Reactor , tell Live Science . " It ’s a really rare opportunity to get to see something with such astonishing conservation . "
A human-made pile of stones, likely used as a marker, that Indigenous people made out of rocks found in the cave, such as stalactites and stalagmites.(Image credit: © CINDAQ.ORG)
Cave loon discovered the ancient mining camps in April 2017 , after study co - author Fred Devos , a diver with the Aquifer System Research Center of Quintana Roo ( CINDAQ ) , a local preservation chemical group , discovered a previously undocumented passageway in the Sagitario cave organization .
The underwater passage led the divers to a striking raiment of ice age mining artefact , including tools , excavation colliery and stone markers , probably left so the miner would n’t get lost in the drab labyrinth . After inviting study co - researcher Eduard Reinhardt , geoarchaeologist at McMaster University in Canada , to link them on a dive , the mathematical group ' understanding of the cave ’s history clicked into place , say study co - author and CINDAQ founder Samuel Meacham , who accompanied Devos on the first dive through the mysterious passage .
Meacham and his workfellow have pass the retiring 25 years dive in the cave systems in Quintana Roo . scientist know that these cave were explored almost as presently as world inhabited the region , because divers have recoveredhuman skeletonsfrom several of the caves , including at Hoyo Negro and Chan Hol Cave , said Mark Hubbe , a professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University , who was not involved in the study . But some of the findings defied explanation .
The cave divers took countless measurements and photos for the archaeologists.(Image credit: © CINDAQ.ORG)
" Over the years , we have seen these anomalous weird things within cave that we could n’t quite explain — rock out of shoes , rocks stacked on top of each other , thing that just did n’t seem natural . But we did n’t have a really good explanation , " Meacham tell Live Science .
Now the divers and archaeologists have at least one explanation . After connecting with a group of archaeologists — a partnership that blossom forth as the cave underwater diver took thousands of photos and pull in samples for the scientists — the evidence was overwhelming that these sites were mines . In essence , prehistoric the great unwashed were prospecting for and mining ocher in the cave , and they were making tool out of whatever appropriately - sized stone they could obtain along the agency , including broken - off stalactites from the ceiling and stalagmite from the story , which the endemic multitude used to hammer , chip and smash away the flowstone ( sheetlike mineral deposits ) that covered the ochre .
Mining for ochre
The caves may be underwater now , but from about 21,500 until about 13,000 to 8,000 years ago , the Camilo Mina , Monkey Dust and Sagitario cave systems were dry and walkable . Even so , record them would have been perilous . At La Mina ( " the mine " in Spanish ) , Indigenous masses would have walk down " by nature darkened handing over , encountering overhead jeopardy and narrow restrictions well into the sinister zone of Sagitario , up to at least 650 meters [ 2,132 feet ] from natural light , " the researchers wrote in the study .
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The frogman retrieved sampling of ochre , calcite rafts ( lacelike quartz glass that form in still waters ) and charcoal for the scientists to analyze and day of the month . The ochre contained high - purity Fe oxides , mean it could make a vibrant , fine - grained reddened paint , the researchers found . The team date the mining activities using radioactive C in the charcoal , probe the mien of the calcite lots that formed after the minelaying events , and look up the ocean - level salary increase phonograph record . These methods indicate that Indigenous people had mine the western part of the cave system from about 11,400 to 10,700 years ago , just as thePleistocene epochwas transitioning to theHolocene epoch .
A cave diver examines an ochre extraction pit in the ancient mine.(Image credit: © CINDAQ.ORG)
" To me , that says that there ’s some point of intergenerational knowledge being passed down . There is continuity of practice , " MacDonald aver . Mining hap in at least two other locations in the cave system of rules , so it ’s even potential that mining was practiced on a regional blank space , she noted .
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A CINDAQ diver squeezes through a narrow passageway in the cave.(Image credit: © CINDAQ.ORG)
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Why mine at all?
While it ’s unclear how the endemic hoi polloi used the ocher , previous study have suggested that the mineral served as an antiseptic ; a sunblock ; as something to eat ; and as check mark or dirt ball repellent . It may also have been used for fell flogging , dick building and for purging parasites .
The ochre from La Mina and Camilo Mino was high in arsenic , approaching 4,000 part per million ( ppm ) , " which is quite a turn , as far as ochre go , " MacDonald said . That proportion is much higher , for instance , than the 10 parts per billion of As that the U.S.Food and Drug Administrationallows in bottled weewee . However , arsenic , a neurolysin , is known to repel pests , so perhaps that ’s a clue to how it was used , MacDonald said .
" For all we know , maybe they ’re just mine a whole bunch of microbe repellant , " she say .
A hammerstone made from a piece of stalactite or stalagmite found in the cave.(Image credit: © CINDAQ.ORG)
Whatever the cause , the study depict that " early human groups in the Americas were already engaged in complex action that went much beyond their own survival , " Hubbe told Live Science in an electronic mail . " The mining of ochre from the caves suggest[s ] that there was an significant societal substance to this mineral and , even though we can not really say what they were using this material for at this point , it does show it was immensely valuable and significant for them . "
The discipline was published online July 3 in the journalScience Advances .
Originally published on Live Science .
A CINDAQ diver collects charcoal samples in the oldest ochre mine ever discovered in the Americas. The charcoal likely came from wood burned to light the cave for the ancient miners. By looking at the charcoal under a scanning electron microscope, the scientists could tell that it came from a local tree that would have been good for torch wood.(Image credit: © CINDAQ.ORG)
A diver examines the 12,000- to 10,000-year-old remains of charcoal from a fire burned by Indigenous people who mined the cave for ochre.(Image credit: Copyright CINDAQ.ORG)
A diver looks for charcoal samples in the cave.(Image credit: Copyright CINDAQ.ORG)
A diver explores the ancient mining camp in La Mina (“the mine” in Spanish).(Image credit: Copyright CINDAQ.ORG)
A view of La Mina, one of the three underwater mining camps that divers helped archaeologists document.(Image credit: Copyright CINDAQ.ORG)
An ochre extraction pit found by CINDAQ divers.(Image credit: Copyright CINDAQ.ORG)
A diver looks at an ochre pit, which attracted Indigenous people who mined it at the end of the last ice age.(Image credit: Copyright CINDAQ.ORG)
