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The remains of a small, delicate teenage girl who fell to her death in an underground cave system in Mexico 12,000 years ago have thrown fresh light on the origins of the first Americans.
Cave divers chanced upon the girl's skeleton, along with the bones of sabre-tooth cats, giant ground sloths and cave bears, in a vast water-filled cavern they discovered while exploring a submerged network of tunnels reached from a sinkhole in the Yucatan jungle.
Researchers believe the girl, whom they have named Naia, died after breaking her pelvis when she fell into the cave, which would have been dry at the time, apart from a small, occasional pool at the bottom. Like the animals around her, she may have met her death after venturing into the cave system to look for drinking water.
The tunnels and bell-shaped cave, which is 60 metres across and 40 metres deep, filled with brackish water when melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise. The cavern is now well below sea level and can only be reached by technical divers.
Alberto Nava, a diver based in California, found the cavern and Naia's remains with two fellow divers in 2007. Deep inside the jungle, the trio had entered a crystal-clear pool that fed into the cave system. After swimming along a flooded tunnel for more than a kilometre, the cavern opened up before them.
www.theguardian.com
Cave divers chanced upon the girl's skeleton, along with the bones of sabre-tooth cats, giant ground sloths and cave bears, in a vast water-filled cavern they discovered while exploring a submerged network of tunnels reached from a sinkhole in the Yucatan jungle.
Researchers believe the girl, whom they have named Naia, died after breaking her pelvis when she fell into the cave, which would have been dry at the time, apart from a small, occasional pool at the bottom. Like the animals around her, she may have met her death after venturing into the cave system to look for drinking water.
The tunnels and bell-shaped cave, which is 60 metres across and 40 metres deep, filled with brackish water when melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise. The cavern is now well below sea level and can only be reached by technical divers.
Alberto Nava, a diver based in California, found the cavern and Naia's remains with two fellow divers in 2007. Deep inside the jungle, the trio had entered a crystal-clear pool that fed into the cave system. After swimming along a flooded tunnel for more than a kilometre, the cavern opened up before them.
Girl's skeleton found in cave sheds light on origins of first Americans
DNA recovered from 12,000-year-old skeleton helps to dispel claims that first Americans came from Australia, Asia or Europe
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