Scientists discover oldest skeleton in Tulum

Scuba divers discover 12,000-year-old skeleton in Yucatán, lending clues to the origins of the first Americans

An accidental underwater discovery made by a group of recreational scuba divers in a remote cave in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula has yielded the oldest intact human skeleton ever found in the Americas, a find which holds important clues in the debate about the origins of the first Americans

Divers discovered the nearly complete skeleton of a teenage girl from the Late Pleistocene age in an underwater cave, Hoyo Negro, just outside Tulum. An international team of scientists and divers has determined that Naia, as she has been nicknamed, is 12,000 to 13,000 years old.

That Naia was found submerged in a cave filled with chemically neutral water that was sealed off from oxygen for at least 8,000 years helped conserve the bones, Chatters said.