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Why ancient people pushed deep into Mexico’s pitch-black caverns

Early residents of the Yucatán Peninsula mined a precious pigment from a vast labyrinth of subterranean passages.
A landmark of piled stone and broken speleothems left 10,000-12,000 years ago left underwater in Yucatan.

Stones and broken cave formations were piled into a marker by prehistoric people 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, probably while they were looking for ochre in a cave in what is now Mexico. Credit: CINDAQ.ORG

Prehistoric people ventured deep into a vast network of twisting caverns in what is now Mexico to extract red ochre, a widely used pigment.

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Nature 583, 335 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02031-y

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