MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—Mexico News Daily reports that a team of researchers including Luis Alberto Martos López of Mexico’s National Autonomous University have dated charcoal samples collected from the remains of 14 ancient bonfires in a flooded cave in the Yucatán Peninsula to some 10,000 years ago. The hunter-gatherers who built the fires would have used an entrance hidden by a mound of rocks, and traveled along a narrow, 50-foot-long tunnel to reach the cave, which measures about 215 feet square, and about 15 to 20 feet in height. Now known as the Aktun Ha cenote, the cave, which was well ventilated and equipped with a natural well before it flooded, probably provided hunter-gatherers with temporary shelter. The fires are likely to have been lit for warmth and cooking. Stone tools were also recovered from the cave. For more, go to "Where There's Coal..."
