Video: the revelation of the red ocher treasure in the Black Hole, the darkest mine in America

In 2014 the discovery of Naia, the oldest skeleton in America found so far, it shook the world. The woman was found in the heavenly submerged cave of black holein the state of Quintana Roo, on the Yucatan peninsula, in the heart of the Mexican Caribbean.

So three cave divers “entered a tunnel filled with water, swam 10 meters deep and 200 meters away, and then fell into this totally black pit“, where they found the human remains of Naia. They also discovered fossils of 26 mammals corresponding to 11 Late Pleistocene species, such as gomphotheres, saber-toothed tigers, Shasta-type ground sloths, giant tapirs, wild boars, bears, pumas, lynxes, coyotes, coatis, and fruit bats.

Since then, archaeologists have continued to study that region of caves where water preserved the first inhabitants of the American continent. 12,800 years ago.

Until the year 2021, the reasons that led these people to risk their lives exploring this dark world were at mystery, even if it was proposed to mix more prosaic reasons, such as the search for refuge or access to fresh water, with more spiritual ones, such as the ritual burial of relatives. Some, perhaps, as necessary for human beings as the others.

That is why the news known in early July 2020 has acquired significant value. It was when scientists from institutions in Mexico, the United States and Canada claimed to have discovered what it would be the oldest mines in America and in them the real reason why the ancient inhabitants entered those passages without light, in ancient times when the water had not yet covered them.

Hoyo Negro’s Red Ocher Treasure

Those mines had a hidden treasure: it was red ochera pigment-forming earth mineral that humans have utilized in regions across the planet for tens of thousands of years to paint objects or in funeral practices and which is considered a key tool in the development of symbolic thinking.

Red ocher is found everywhere among the vestiges of the first inhabitants of the American continent, but never before in 2020 has a deposit been found with evidence of extraction of the material. In “La Mina” and two other caves The ocher springs and the remains of the improvised tools that Paleolithic miners used to remove them have been foundlike stalactites or stalagmites that were torn out to make spikes.

They also found remains of resinous woods which could be used as torches to work in the dark and markers to indicate the direction of the ocher deposits.

Brandy McDonaldresearcher at the University of Missouri (USA) and co-author of the research (at the time published in the prestigious journal The progress of science), indicated: “Mining at La Mina lasted at least 2000 years and we can assume that it was an intergenerational activity, with a transmission of knowledge between the groups that entered and left the region during all these years”.

And he added that having found evidence of prospecting for ocher in at least three caves, they could say that it was not an isolated activity but that it was a regional custom, he continues. “Also we can infer that there was some collaboration to coordinate the mining. It would be very difficult for a single person to do the activity that we have seen effectively and safely,” said MacDonald.

Red ocher was used in funerals or in paintings such as those in the Altamira Cave. “But it could also serve as sunscreen or insecticide“say the filmmakers of the Hoyo Negro studio. Its use is cross-cultural; there are very different companies in very distant times that used it. Some studies estimate that Neanderthals were using it as early as 250,000 years ago, although their uses were more rudimentary than those of sapiens in more recent times.

Samuel Meachham, founder of the Quintana Roo AC Aquifer System Research Center (CINDAQ), was one of the dive team leaders for this study. And he was very explicit: “In every dive there is the possibility of finding something new. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would find a prehistoric mine. I can’t even imagine what we will be able to see next year,” she says.

However, CINDAQ explorers advanced in their tunnel entry during this 2021 They estimate that there are still more than 2,000 kilometers of caves to explore completely.

Meacham perfectly describes what is to come: “We have no doubt that there is much more to be discovered to be understood. We hope that these incredible discoveries of ancient human activity preserved in these waters for so long will serve to draw attention to the threats these aquifers face today due to human activities. The real treasure in these caves is what flows through them and allows people and wildlife to thrive.”