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<< Other Photo Pages >> Hoyo Negro Cenote - Cave or Rock Shelter in Mexico in Quintana Roo

Submitted by bat400 on Thursday, 12 June 2014  Page Views: 7810

Natural PlacesSite Name: Hoyo Negro Cenote Alternative Name: Black Hole Sinkhole
Country: Mexico Region: Quintana Roo Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Tulum
Latitude: 20.246000N  Longitude: 87.464W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
1 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Hoyo Negro Cenote
Hoyo Negro Cenote submitted by bat400_photo : This photo is actually of the Grand Cenote, where exploration of the Sistema Sac Actun underwater caverns and the Hoyo Negro began. Grand Cenote, Tulum 6 October 2010, 10:57 Photo by anjči from London, UK. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Cave in Quintana Roo. A sinkhole within the Sistema Sac Actun (White Cave) cave system. In 2011 the PET (Projecto Espeleológico de Tulum) team of exploratory divers discovered the remains of prehistoric animals and humans.

The pit is approximately 200 feet [60 meters] deep and 120 feet [36 meters] in diameter. However, the pit is over 4000 feet within the flooded cave system from any surface opening.

Approximately 12,000 years ago (end of the Pleistocene) the melting of the ice caps caused a dramatic rise in global sea levels, which flooded low lying coastal landscapes and cave systems. Before this flooding ancient animals (cave bears, giant sloths) and early Americans would have seen Hoyo Negro as a waterhole within a cavern.

Note: Location given is for the Grand Cenote, the large original surface sinkhole opening from which the Sac Actun system was explored. Its is not the surface location above Hoyo Negro. Because of the interconnection of cave systems, Hoyo Negro has also been described as part of the Actun Hu cave system.

Note: Young girl's skeleton found in an underwater cave reveals Native American origins. Details in the comment on our page.
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 5.1km SE 134° Tulum* Ancient Village or Settlement
 13.0km NE 49° Xel-Ha* Ancient Village or Settlement
 24.3km SW 220° Muyil* Ancient Village or Settlement
 38.5km NW 316° Coba'* Ancient Village or Settlement
 50.4km ENE 76° El Cedral Ancient Temple
 51.6km NE 44° Xcaret Ancient Village or Settlement
 57.1km NE 44° Xaman-Ha* Ancient Temple
 67.5km ENE 65° Santa Rita* Ancient Temple
 70.2km ENE 66° San Gervasio* Ancient Temple
 99.8km NNW 347° San Manuel Cenote Cave or Rock Shelter
 100.3km NW 316° Ek Balam* Ancient Village or Settlement
 104.6km NNW 338° Kulubá* Ancient Village or Settlement
 115.2km NE 38° El Rey Zona Arqueologica* Ancient Temple
 120.6km WNW 293° Balankanche Cave* Cave or Rock Shelter
 125.0km WNW 293° Chichen Itza* Ancient Village or Settlement
 129.2km WNW 285° Yaxuna* Ancient Village or Settlement
 147.9km WNW 289° Xtojil Cenote* Ancient Village or Settlement
 153.5km SSW 208° Chacchoben* Ancient Village or Settlement
 179.0km WNW 296° Izamal* Ancient Village or Settlement
 196.4km W 268° Chacmultun* Ancient Village or Settlement
 206.4km WNW 293° Aké (Yucatan)* Ancient Village or Settlement
 207.8km W 271° Grutas de Loltún* Cave or Rock Shelter
 212.4km WNW 282° Mayapan* Ancient Village or Settlement
 214.9km SSW 205° Noh Kah Ancient Village or Settlement
 216.5km WNW 287° Acanceh* Ancient Village or Settlement
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"Hoyo Negro Cenote" | Login/Create an Account | 5 News and Comments
  
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Re: Hoyo Negro, Quintana Roo, skull - Likely to Predate End of the Last Ice Age by Anonymous on Thursday, 12 June 2014
Are we forgetting Pedra Furada, and the Negroid settlement found there, as far as an age of "New World" skeletal remains ????
[ Reply to This ]
    Other early sites in South America by bat400_photo on Friday, 13 June 2014
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    We're reporting a news story. I don't think in it there is a direct suggestion this is "the" earliest human remain in the Americas, simply that this one, of this date, shows the genetic markers for transit from north Asia [which to be fair could be through the Bering landbridge or by coastal migration with a very similar genetic "trail".]

    If I'm not mistaken Pedra Furada artifacts associated with the earliest ages (the controversial ones dealing with man-made hearths vs. "geofacts") don't include human remains, so there is no genetic link to examine.

    As to the "Negroid settlement," I think you mean the skull morphology study performed by Walter Neves of San Paulo where he matched 14000 yo skulls from South America to "Australoid" skull types. I'm not sure I've ever seen DNA studies of those finds. If you look at the story for the Hoyo Negro find on this site listing, I think you'll see that the morphology of this Yucatan find is NOT typical to Indians of the Americas, but the DNA IS.

    This would support an argument against the "Australian" origin of Neves skulls. Namely that cranio-facial variability could account for the morphology seen in those skulls - or for that matter the Kennewick Man skull.
    [ Reply to This ]

Cave-diving scientist on team available to discuss discovery and its underwater site by bat400 on Wednesday, 11 June 2014
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Scientist Patricia A. Beddows (Northwestern University) is a member of an international team of researchers and cave divers announcing the discovery of one of the oldest human skeletons found in North America.
Details of "Naia," a teenage girl who went underground to seek water and fell to her death in a large pit named Hoyo Negro ("black hole" in Spanish), was published in the journal Science.

"The preservation of all the bones in this deep water-filled cave is amazing -- the bones are beautifully laid out," said Beddows, who has hovered underwater above the skeleton's site and prospected in the area. "The girl's skeleton is exceptionally complete because of the environment in which she died -- she ended up in the right water and in a quiet place without any soil. Her pristine preservation enabled our team to extract enough DNA to determine her shared genetic code with modern Native Americans."

Beddows, fluent in English, Spanish and French, is available to talk to reporters under embargo and can discuss her experience as one of the two cave-diving scientists who have been underwater at the site. She can share her expertise on the formation of the caves, the distribution and movement of groundwater at Hoyo Negro and sediments at the site and on the skeleton.
Beddows can be reached at office 847-491-7460, cell 224-420-0977 or by e-mail: patricia@earth.northwestern.edu.

Now covered by water, the girl's skeleton is between 13,000 and 12,000 years old and establishes a shared ancestry between the earliest Americans and modern Native Americans. Genetic analysis shows the prehistoric girl and living Native Americans came from the same place during the initial peopling of the Americas. The near-complete human skeleton -- with an intact cranium and preserved DNA -- was lying 130 feet below sea level near a variety of extinct animals.

Led by Pilar Luna (Mexican government's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH)) and James Chatters (Applied Paleoscience,) 15 experts from a wide range of fields have focused on telling the story of the young woman and Hoyo Negro since the skeleton's discovery in 2011.

Beddows' expertise regarding the Hoyo Negro discovery is focused on three areas:
+ Cave formation. "Hoyo Negro is a very complex site," Beddows said. "By understanding the formation of the shallow caves and the shaft into which the girl fell, we know that the girl ... visited a site that looks almost like it does today, except that the water level was down in the bottom of the shaft."
+ Hydrogeology. Beddows' studies have shown how these extensive caves drain groundwater to the coasts and, more specifically, how the water level in the caves matches sea level very closely. "Using this knowledge, we understand how Hoyo Negro has changed over thousands of years," Beddows said.
+ Recrystalized rock sediments. The rocks and the skeletons in Hoyo Negro have rock crystals lying on them, including a new form of impressive crystal growing on them that Beddows calls "florets," in recognition of their bushy nature and size. "An aspect of this research is that we have dated the skeleton directly, but we also have supported these dates with additional dates on the florets," Beddows said.

Her research focuses on cave systems that are carved by dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks like limestone and dolomite, and her biggest research concentration is the flooded caves of the Yucatán Peninsula.

"Research in flooded caves is like space exploration, with divers similar to astronauts reporting back to 'mission control' -- a much larger surface scientific team," Beddows said. "Our team has been supported by a great number of dedicated cave divers who have committed hundreds of hours at very dangerous depths to complete this exploration."

Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, see: http://www.eurekalert.org
[ Reply to This ]

Young girl's skeleton found in underwater cave reveals Native American origins by bat400 on Wednesday, 11 June 2014
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A teenage girl who fell into a hole more than 12,000 years ago in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula is offering new clues about the origins of the first Native Americans, researchers said Thursday. Named "Naia" by scientists, her skeleton is among the oldest known and best preserved in the Americas. She was discovered by a team led by the Mexican government's National Institute of Anthropology and History and supported by the Washington-based National Geographic Society.

Naia's remains were found in 2007, submerged in an underwater cave along with the bones of saber tooth tigers, giant sloths and cave bears, some 135 feet (41 meters) below sea level. At the time she fell, some 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, the area, called Hoyo Negro, or Black Hole in Spanish, was dry and above ground. Melting glaciers caused sea level rise that covered the pit with water for the last 8,000 years.

The girl was aged 15 to 16 and may have slipped into what appeared to her, and to the animals who met the same demise, to be a watering hole. Her pelvis appears to have broken on impact, suggesting she died quickly after her fall, said Jim Chatters, an archeologist and forensic anthropologist in Bothell, Washington. Her skull shows she had a small, narrow face, wide-set eyes, a prominent forehead and teeth that jutted outward.

[Despite a non-stereotypical appearance] a genetic marker found in the girl's rib bone and tooth shows that her maternally inherited lineage was the same as that found in some modern Native Americans.

The report in the journal Science suggests she descended from people who migrated from Asia across the Bering Strait, over a land mass that was known as Beringia. "What this study is presenting for the first time is the evidence that paleo-Americans with those distinctive features can also be directly tied to the same Beringian source population as contemporary Native Americans," said Deborah Bolnick, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. That goes against theories held by some experts that Native Americans were descendants of people who migrated later, perhaps from Europe, southeast Asia or Australia. "I used to be one of those advocates of multiple immigration events," said Chatters, an archeologist who is best known for his work on Kennewick Man, a 9,800-year-old skull and skeletal remains found in the US state of Washington. Chatters initially believed that the Kennewick Man descended from European settlers, because his skull did not resemble a typical Native American face. But subsequent research, including the DNA analysis on Naia, has changed his way of thinking about where the earliest Native Americans came from.

The international team of researchers working on Naia has identified just one genetic marker from her mitochondrial DNA, called mtDNA haplogroup D1. "Haplogroup D1 is derived from an Asian lineage but is found only in the Americas today," explained Bolnick. "Approximately 11 percent of Native Americans exhibit this genetic lineage," she added. "It's found throughout North, Central and South America and this D1 lineage is especially common in some South American populations." Bolnick said their analysis at this point cannot exclude the possibility that other early peoples, known as paleo-Americans, came from places other than Beringia, but that so far the evidence does not support that possibility. Naia is the sixth oldest human found in the Americas, said Chatters. Future research aims to sequence her nuclear DNA, which should reveal more details about her ancestry.

Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more Information: artdaily.com/news.
Copyright © artdaily.org
[ Reply to This ]

Hoyo Negro, Quintana Roo, skull - Likely to Predate End of the Last Ice Age by bat400 on Wednesday, 11 June 2014
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A link to the Megalithic Portal news item for the original discovery as reported by the National Geographic: This is a link.
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