Emily Chan
According to anthropologists from the INAH, Pablo Neptalí Monterroso Rivas and Isabel Bertha Garza Gómez, the skull and pelvis indicated that the individual was female. At the time of her death, she was around 30 to 40 years old.
They did not find the problems with the neck vertebrae that previous researchers did, but they noted that there was some flattening on the back of the woman’s head. The combination of cranial flattening and a fetal-like posture pointed to signs of Indigenous origin.
So, how did she end up in the Palace of Cortés? In 1150, centuries before Cortés landed in Mexico, the region was occupied by an Aztec group called the Tlahuica. They built a city called Cuauhnáhuac, which is now modern-day Cuernavaca.
The city was rich, prosperous, and filled with people by the time Cortés arrived. The Spanish ransacked the city in 1521, burning the Aztec’s tax collection house down and replacing it with a palace dedicated to Cortés.
It is believed that the Tlahuica woman was buried between 1500 and 1521, a period that occurred just before the city fell to Spanish invasions.
The burial was less like a traditional one and more like a series of ritual practices that might have included sacrifices.
A handful of bones were also unearthed alongside the Tlahuica woman’s. They were associated with an infant and a child.
It is unclear whether the children were related, but a DNA study could help clarify their relationship.
