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In Mexico’s underwater caves, a glimpse of artifacts, fossils and human remains
- petesergeant 2y agoHow do you make cave diving scarier? Skulls. Turns out the answer is half-buried human skulls.
- temp0826 2y agoBeen living in the Yucatan the last couple of years. The Mayans believe that cenotes are gateways to the underworld, so it's kinda on point. When people are having bad luck (injuries etc) and there is one nearby, they will pray and make offerings to the spirits that inhabit them. And if that doesn't work they will fire guns into them to scare them away.
- hinkley 2y agoCrabs. Click click.
- sparrish 2y agoSuch amazing photography of those underwater caves.
- lxe 2y agoThat photography... wow!
- throwup238 2y agoAnyone visiting the Yucatan peninsula should take a day to go swimming in a cenote. It’s a magical experience even without diving into the underwater caves (they have some scary signs with warnings about that). > There’s a symbiotic relationship between the passionate and technical cave explorers who investigate every hole in a cave in their free time (and just for fun) and those in the scientific community who want to study these prehistoric materials but cannot reach where they’re hidden in the underwater darkness. The lack of cavers in general is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in archaeology and paleoanthropology. Since a lot of archaic human species were quite a bit smaller, they managed to make very elaborate caves their home that are hard for the average adult to navigate. Underwater archaeology is still in its infancy so the training isn't explicitly part of anyone's education. Last year there was a story [1] on the front page about research into Homo naledi in the Rising Star Cave [2] that was only made possible because they were able to find six petite paleoanthropologists cavers who were able to fit through a "vertically oriented 'chimney' or 'chute' measuring 12 m (39 ft) long with an average width of 20 cm (7.9 in)" to the Dinaledi room in the back of the cave. They found 1,500 human bones there and still have a lot left to excavate. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344397 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Star_Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Star_Cave
- bokohut 2y agoI am very fortunate and grateful to have experienced this with my family as well. It was surreal and other worldly to me while swimming underground in crystal cold waters surrounded by fibrous tree roots hanging down from high above. How did these fish get in here?
- defrost 2y agoRoe aka released mature fertilised masses of fish eggs often stick to sea grasses until fish hatch ... buut ... Given a good tropical storm these get shaken up, scattered about, float to the surface, and get picked up by water spouts, waves, and other events that can carry them into the air and then at the mercy of the winds and sleeting rain movements .. some of which will shed into inland sinkholes, etc. Further, much of the Southern North American and Central American land form is crossed by limestone and and underground river systems that are fed by water above ground; where water flows eggs can follow.
- aegypti 2y agoA well-known example is the figure of a woman at the entrance of Cenote Dos Ojos; while it was not sculpted as such, it is a carefully selected speleothem that resembles the silhouette of a woman and was intentionally exhibited on a pedestal to decorate the cave entrance, evidence of paleoart from more than 8,000 years ago that anyone can visit. Are there any images of this?
- api 2y agoCaves like these always make me think of what might be beneath the surface of Mars, Europa, or many other bodies in the solar system with sub-surface oceans.
- EdwardDiego 2y agoImagine being in the first submarine on Europa.
- bicx 2y agoAnd finding human remains
- michaelwilson 2y ago...under "a few" to 20 kilometers of ice even. * Richard Greenberg suggests "a few" kilometers. * Robert Pappalardo suggests ~20 kilometers.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoOr waking something up <_<
- CatWChainsaw 2y agoR'lyeh is in the south Pacific, go back to sleep sir.
- api 2y agoThere are a whole bunch of creepypastas about things like the first mission to Mars finding a human skeleton in an old Soviet space suit and something written on a rock nearby. Stuff like: "We are not allowed to leave... they will be coming..."
- api 2y agoI desperately want to see that in my lifetime. I give high odds that there's something alive under there. Maybe just single celled organisms or simple worm-like things like what lives near vents in Earth's oceans, but anything would be mind-blowing. Then I want to see if its biology chemically resembles ours. If it does, it means some form of panspermia is true and the idea that life originated on Earth is the last remaining geocentrism. There is a good sci-fi flick about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Report Of course for a film they made it a manned mission when IRL we would never do that, not just because it would take too long to get humans out there but because of contamination (in either direction).
- paulcole 2y agoWow, 3 of my favorite things in one place. If there was also an HN flame war about RTO vs. WFH down there I might never leave.
- EdwardDiego 2y agoCan't WFH in a cave...
- defrost 2y agoSure you can: https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/9906314 https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/9906314 (one of many) Coober Pedy's a long standing still active mining "cave" town - and there are others about the globe, some going back a thousand years and more.
- hinkley 2y agoSomewhere in the long dark ago I saw a human interest story about a hermit who made himself a house in a cave. It was still a cave, but it was clear that someone at least slightly civilized lived there.
- defrost 2y agoEntire old Italian villages on peak outcrops were built by cutting into the limestone leading to a montage of { caves + stone houses }. There was a chap from that family background (he was born in the UK perhaps but his father wasn't) who rennovated an Ye old Englishe cave dwelling ... https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/grand-designs-houses/the-grand-designs-cave-house/ https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/grand-designs-houses/th... There are channels carved out in the rock for cabling and wood fire chimmneys, etc. Also bookable for retreats: https://www.therockhouseretreat.co.uk/ https://www.therockhouseretreat.co.uk/
- EdwardDiego 2y agoOkay, Australian Outback holes weren't what I was thinking of. Was mainly thinking about the ability to get a wireless connection underground being pretty rough, especially when it's a cave filled with water. (Sonar based wireless? Sofi?)
- Qem 2y ago> Among the many extinct species that lived in this region are members of the family Megalonychidae (including the genus Megalonyx, Greek for “large claw”). Fossils of these giant ground sloths are commonly found in the caves, as they probably took refuge within them, such as members of the genus Xibalbaonyx (“great claw of Xibalba”), a polar bear-sized ground sloth with big claws that measured up to 12 feet in height and weighed nearly a ton. They are joined by members of related families, including the genus Nothrotheriops, a grizzly bear-sized mammal that reached five feet tall and weighed 1,000 pounds. It's unfortunate DNA doesn't preserve well in humid environments. Those many bones could provide a lot of genetic information otherwise.
- astrange 2y agoThere's a newer[1] technique called paleoproteomics that work by looking for remnants of known proteins in bones, storage containers, cave dirt etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_protein#Palaeoproteomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_protein#Palaeoproteomi... [1] heh
- Qem 2y agoNice. But IIRC not all DNA code for proteins, so some of it would remain unrecoverable by this method.
- sfeng 2y agoIf you are a SCUBA diver, but always wished that diving was a bit more technical and rigorous, I highly recommend trying cave diving [1]. You can do a cenote tour in just an afternoon, and if you’re hooked a few weeks of training (spaced over time) will make you into a radically better diver. 1- https://www.underthejungle.com/en/cave-cavern-training/ https://www.underthejungle.com/en/cave-cavern-training/
- adolph 2y agoExtraction of the article's timeline with years ago zero padded to illustrate time spans: 66,000,000: the cataclysmic impact of the Chicxulub asteroid 66,000,000: end of the dinosaur age 66,000,000: mammals began to dominate the lands once ruled by dinosaurs. 27,000,000: formation of the Panamanian land bridge 27,000,000: Great American Biotic Interchange. 00,200,000: fossilized shell of a loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) perished in the cave 00,025,000: first Homo sapiens crossed into America over the Bering Land Bridge at least 00,013,000: evidence found in the cenotes points to human settlements 00,013,000: first Homo sapiens arrived on the Yucatán Peninsula at the end of the last ice age 00,013,000: end of the last ice age 00,010,000: megafauna species abrupt extinction 00,008,000: evidence of paleoart 00,008,000: last time the shallow caves on the Yucatán Peninsula flooded 00,004,000: The Maya established their civilization on the Yucatán Peninsula
- exabrial 2y agoHoly macro, after the whole incident a few years back with the kids trapped in the cave, I had _no idea_ how treacherous cave diving is. Optimistic case is you have to swim straightforward, completely blind, while not panicking, in the dark, using just whatever guide wire/rope you set on your way in. Oh and the water is probably nipple-freezing hard. I'm a purveyor of extreme sports but nope, I'll leave this to the UUVs. Nope on a rope.