Bones back idea Aztecs retaliated vs. Spanish

CALPULALPAN, Mexico -- Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show that Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed, and ate parts of several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces in 1520.

Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque arch eological site near Mexico City show that about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings. Many were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, scientists say.

The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women, and children traveling with them. The attacks were in revenge for the invaders' killing of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's second-largest city of Texcoco.

Archeologists say the discovery proves some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors, led by explorer Hernan Cortes, before the Spaniards attacked the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City.

History books say that many indigenous Mexicans welcomed the white-skinned horsemen in the belief they were returning gods but that they turned against the Spaniards once they tried to take over the Aztec seat of power in a conflict that ended in 1521.

``This is the first place that has so much evidence there was resistance to the conquest," said archeologist Enrique Martinez, director of the dig at Calpulalpan in Tlaxcala state, near Texcoco. ``It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight."

The Aztec attack on the caravan apparently succeeded because the travelers were slowed by the many mulatto, mestizo, Maya Indian, and Caribbean men and women given to the Spanish as carriers and cooks when they landed in Mexico in 1519.

After their capture, the prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests selected a few each day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts, and offered them up to various Aztec gods.

Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque -- an alcoholic, milky drink made from fermented cactus juice -- to numb them to what was about to happen.

``It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martinez said, standing in his lab amid boxes of bones, some of young children.

The team began work in 1990 and is only now finishing its investigation.