Discovery
‘Conquistadores kill women’:
New research suggests Spanish conquistadores butchered at least a dozen women and their children in an Aztec-allied town where the inhabitants sacrificed and ate a detachment of Spaniards they had captured months earlier.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History published finding from years of excavation work at the town of Tecoaque, which means “the place where they ate them” in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs.
Residents of Tecoaque, also known as Zultepec, captured a convoy of about 15 male Spaniards, 50 women and 10 children, 45 foot soldiers who included Cubans of African and Indigenous descent, and about 350 allies from Indigenous groups in 1520. All were apparently sacrificed over the space of months.
When he heard about it, conquistador Hernán Cortes ordered Gonzalo de Sandoval to destroy the town in revenge in early 1521.
Archeologist Enrique Martínez Vargas said excavations suggest the inhabitants of Tecoaque knew a reprisal attack was coming and tossed the bones of the Spaniards — some of which had been carved into trophies — and other evidence into shallow wells.
The townspeople also tried to erect some primitive defensive works along the main thoroughfare of the town, none of which worked when De Sandoval and his punitive expedition rode in.
“Some of the warriors who had stayed in the town managed to flee, but women and children remained, and they were the main victims,” the institute said in a statement. “This we have been able to demonstrate over a 120-meter (yard) stretch of the main thoroughfare, where the skeletons of a dozen women were found who appeared to be ‘protecting’ the bones of ten children between the ages of five and six.”
Photos of the excavations show children’s bones beside those of the adult females, with some of the women’s skulls or arm bones turned toward the youngsters. (AP)
Keystone XL pipeline halted:
Construction on the long disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline halted Wednesday.
The premier of the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta called it an “insult” and said the federal Canadian government should impose trade sanctions if it is not reversed.
The 1,700-mile (2,735-kilometer) pipeline was planned to carry roughly 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.
“As a result of the expected revocation of the Presidential Permit, advancement of the project will be suspended,” the Calgary, Alberta-based company said in a statement.
Keystone XL President Richard Prior said over 1,000 jobs, the majority unionized, will be eliminated in the coming weeks.
“We will begin a safe and orderly shutdown of construction at our US pump station sites and we will conclude the Canadian pipeline scope in the coming weeks,” he said.
First proposed in 2008, the pipeline has become emblematic of the tensions between economic development and curbing the fossil fuel emissions that are causing climate change. The Obama administration rejected it, but President
Donald Trump revived it and has been a strong supporter. Construction already started.
“We are disappointed but acknowledge the President’s decision to fulfil his election campaign promise on Keystone XL,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement.
Trudeau said his government tried to make the case for the pipeline to US President Joe Biden and his officials. (AP)