Already during the Colony, several chroniclers narrated the discovery of these huge bones, attributed to a race prior to the flood.
Still today some peasants speak of giant skeletons that they sometimes find on their lands.
Already during the Colony several chroniclers narrated the discovery of these huge bones, attributed to a race prior to the flood; Even today some peasants speak of giant bones that they sometimes find on their land.
During the 19th century, the first scientific studies and publications were carried out in this regard, which identified the large mammals that lived in our territory 10 thousand or more years ago, of which the largest and best known is the mighty mammoth.
Mexico is full of remains of mammoths that are not seen, but that in much of the national territory lie underground and from time to time they appear to surprise us. In the middle of the 20th century, the remains of one of them, perhaps the most famous in the country, were found in Santa Isabel Ixtapan, State of Mexico; and in the course of the last 50 years they have appeared in almost the entire country, from Baja California to Chiapas, with the exception of the Yucatan peninsula and Tabasco.
In 1974 And during a landslide, a farmer found vestiges on the shores of Fresnillo, Zacatecas; later more appeared in the already considered paleontological zone. Today, many residents of the Santa Ana community have in their homes tusks -correctly called defenses-, molars and ribs that together could form an important collection. Something similar has happened in other places.
In what were the lake areas of Valsequillo, Puebla; in Chapala, Jalisco, and in El Cedral, San Luis Potosí, important finds have been made because they are associated, as in Ixtapan, with human presence. Mammoths are also found in the water: at the bottom of the Media Luna lagoon, in Río Verde, SLP, this type of remains and other ancient animals were found several years ago.
However, it is in the Valley of Mexico that they have been most exhumed and best studied, mainly in the surroundings of the old Lake Texcoco, in the northern half of the Federal District and neighboring municipalities of the State of Mexico. With so many constructions it is not difficult for the enormous bones to emerge when excavating. In the heart of Mexico City, the lNAH has rescued many remains of mammoths on the Metro lines and colonies as diverse as Del Valle, Lindavista, or to the south, next to the Coyoacán nurseries. In the State of Mexico we could almost call historical the findings of Acozac (Ixtapaluca, 1956), those of Tepexpan (1958 and 1961), and those of the Santa Lucía air base (1976), which were reburied for reasons of military security, among others. Just in 2001 the remains of three mammoths were found in the center of Tlanepantla, when excavating for a work.
PHOTOGRAPHIC HUNT
The Regional Museum of the lNAH in Guadalajara exhibits a rather large, and somewhat unusual, mammoth, armed standing, which was located in Santa Catarina, Jalisco. In the north, there are pieces in the Paleontological Museum of Ciudad Delicias, Chihuahua; at the University of Sonora, Hermosillo; in the town of Mina, Nuevo León, and in the Museo de El Obispado, in Monterrey. In the capital, the most striking specimen is in the UNAM Geology Museum; It is a skeleton armed with the bones of 12 animals - most of them belong to a mammoth found in 1926 on the federal highway to Puebla - which is about four meters high. Skeletons and loose bones of other Pleistocene animals can be seen in an adjoining room.
The symbol of the Talisman station on Line 4 of the Metro is a mammoth, because in 1978, while the foundations were being laid, a small and incomplete skeleton of one of these animals was found, which today is exhibited in a moat protected by a dome at the eastern entrance of the place. Ribs, tibiae and loose molars are displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Xochimilco, in the town of Santa Cruz Acalpixcan.
In the metropolitan area of Mexico City, the Museo Casa de Morelos is working on the restoration and standing assembly of the skeleton of a fairly complete mammoth, found some years ago in an ejido in Ecatepec.
Small, but historic, is the Tepexpan Museum, which exhibits loose bones of a mammoth, a mural, and a model on the subject.
TOCUILA, ASTONISHMENT OF THE WORLD
Around 45 ha measures one of the richest deposits in fauna of the Pleistocene excavated in America. The mammoth deposit in Tocuila is located under a good part of this neighboring population of Texcoco, State of Mexico, where the most outstanding mammoth researchers in the world have attended.
Mexican specialists have discovered that the bone deposit - dating from almost 11 thousand years ago, according to the dates - is located at the former mouth of a river in the ancient lake of Texcoco. It is being investigated if the animals were trapped by the current, perhaps by the mud, or if the man who lived at that time, of intense volcanic activity in the Valley of Mexico, carried and accumulated them at that point.
The Tocuila site was discovered in 1996 when a cistern was excavated on a private property, not far from the church. At three meters deep, the remains of at least five mammoths of various ages were found. The land was loaned by its owners to show the bones to locals and visitors, and with the support of the University of Chapingo, INAH, the municipality of Tocuila and the Pascual refreshment plant, in November 2001 it was inaugurated as a Paleontological Museum. - Much remains to be investigated at this site, where there are signs of human activity such as chips carved to be used as tools. It would not be impossible that in a stroke of luck we would find stone tools or human remains, says archaeologist Luis Moertt Alatorre.
