TEPEXPAN MAN: HISTORY, CHARACTERISTICS, THEORIES, MUSEUM - HISTORY - 2025

The man from Tepexpan or Tepexpan 1 according to its scientific name, is a skeleton from pre-Columbian times that was discovered in 1947. It was the archaeologist Helmut de Terra who, near the shores of the ancient Lake Texoco, Mexico, found the remains together with those of a mammoth.

The skeleton responds to the characteristics of contemporary man, Homo sapiens, and is believed to be approximately 6 to 7 thousand years old. In addition, it is believed that it could be the skeletal remains of a woman between 50 and 65 years old and 1.60 meters tall.

Image via Ryan Somma from Occoquan, USA

The discovery of the Tepexpan man was of vital importance, since he was not only in good condition, but also served to understand migratory movements. Among them, how the population was distributed in the Valley of Mexico.

The discovery occurred thanks to the use of instruments and technologies designed to detect anomalies on the ground. After a few days of work and a little more than a meter deep, they found the remains buried.

The discovery served to end an ancient theory, which held that America had been the last continent to be populated and, therefore, where the least evolved civilizations existed. The man from Tepexpan, in this case the woman, managed to demonstrate that life existed on the continent in prehistoric times.

Discovery history

Florentino Ameghino, By Public Domain, (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=328333)

The history of the discovery of the Tepexpan man is closely related to the life of the scientist Helmut de Terra. This German naturalist was the one who found his remains, in the expedition carried out in 1947.

From a French family, de Terra had been in contact with the Argentine scientist Florentino Ameghino, who maintained that the first inhabitants of the world had been in his country, Argentina. The passion for the subject and the theories of Ameghino injected Helmut de Terra's curiosity for America.

This made him over time a true obsessive, dedicating much of his life to the study and analysis of "Pleistocene sediments and remains of primitive humans", as described in his memoirs.

During the 1920s, his first great works took him to Asia. There he was able to collect fossil remains and collaborate in the preparation of glaciological maps. During this time and while living in China, he managed to establish in line with the scientific community, that the first men emerged in Africa and then moved to Asia.

De Terra, after his stay in China, he would move to the United States where he would perfect his studies until the start of World War II. Once the war conflict ended, he finally decided to start his trip through Latin America to find the remains of the man from Tepexpan in 1947.

Thanks to this finding, today much more is known about how not only pre-Hispanic societies arose and evolved, but also human life throughout the planet.

Character and methodologies of Helmut de Terra

In addition to this great milestone for science and for the history of Mexico, de Terra is also valued for being a pioneer in the use of innovative methodologies. It was he who introduced the use of carbon dating and geo-radar, for example, to local archeology.

Besides this, he was also famous for using unconventional techniques and for his great inventiveness. In fact, in order to find the remains of the Tepexpan man, it is recorded in their diaries that he and his team used common wire, his own car, and a fairly basic metal detector.

His ability to bypass scientific norms and conventions, as well as his volatile and lively character, made him famous for generating his research reports with surprising speed.

These unorthodox methods earned him much criticism and rivalries among his peers, making several enemies who fought him throughout his career. In fact, today there are those who consider themselves detractors of Terra's methods and discoveries.

However, the only certainty is that his contribution to Mexican and American archeology is invaluable. With the appearance of the Man of Tepexpan myths about the continent were shattered and the passion about the prehistoric past of the region was awakened.

characteristics

Homo-sapiens migration history, By NordNordWest - Spreading homo sapiens ru.svg by Urutseg which based on Spreading homo sapiens.jpg by Altaileopard, Public Domain, (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php ? curid = 34697001).

Thanks to the fossil remains of plants and animals that were found in the area of ​​the discovery (among them the mammoth), it was initially believed that Tepexpan man would date from the same date, 10,000 years old.

A subsequent batch of studies, which were controversial for their questionable methodologies, spoke of an age of only 2000 years. This debunked all theories about migration and primitive men in America.

Thanks to the discontent of the scientific community, other studies were carried out again and were conclusive. These are the ones who established that the skeleton dated from 6000 to 7000 years ago.

Preliminary studies showed that in the skull, the Tepexpan man had a fracture that would correspond to a blow. This added to the proximity with the mammoth fossil, led to believe that in life it could have been a hunter man (or woman).

Later, large accumulations of calcium were also discovered in the cervicals of the neck. This means that he could also have suffered from arthritis. In his mouth they found only three teeth and it was later known that his teeth disappeared before he passed away.

Regarding its physical features, the scientists assure that the skull cavity may have housed a brain of the same size as that of the pre-Hispanic natives. In addition, the Tepexpan man had a strong jaw, a sharp chin, and prominent cheekbones.

The lake

Along with the studies on human fossil remains, strong attention was also devoted to Lake Texcoco. The studies carried out on the soil, volcanic remains and clay, determined that 7000 years ago, it had great depth, an enormous quantity of fish and that a copious and green vegetation grew around it.

This is incredibly striking, since today and thanks to the series of volcanic eruptions that occurred 2000 years ago, Lake Texcoco is completely dry.

Theory

The discovery of the Tepexpan man served to revitalize interest in the history of the settlement of America and its earliest migratory movements. Thanks to this fossil, we now know that the first humans appeared much more than 10,000 years ago.

The different scientific currents agree that the origins of humanity, on all continents, share a common feature: societies were divided into those who gathered food and those who hunted it.

It is precisely this way of life that prompted the transfer from one point of the planet to another. According to studies, the first inhabitants of the planet who have their origin in Africa and Asia, would have crossed to America through the Bering Strait, in search of new sources of food.

The first international migratory currents happened almost 30 thousand years ago and occurred by chance. It is believed that ancient nomadic humans began to navigate the ocean in search of new sources of food, eventually ending up on a new continent.

The origin of the first settlers to arrive in the Americas would be Siberian and would have occurred in three well differentiated stages. In each one they would be established in different parts of the continent, being the current Alaska and Canada, the most predominant.

Tepexpan Museum

Aboriginal hunting tools, By Mark Marathon - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40171224)

Undoubtedly, in addition to its scientific value in itself, one of the great contributions of the discovery of the Tepexpan man is the revitalization of archaeological interest in Mexico.

The current Tepexpan Man Museum is today one of the most valuable in the country. There, scientists and academics focus on giving place to anthropological cultural dissemination, making known what the country and America were like during Prehistory.

In addition to the man from Tepexpan, information can also be found about other finds such as: The Man of Tlapacoya or The Woman of the Rock III.

Anthropologists, physicists, historians, geologists and archaeologists are part of the titanic task of reconstructing the past and keeping the ancient history of the country alive at the Tepexpan Museum. This was inaugurated in 1955 and focuses more than anything on life in the current basin of Mexico.

In the museum there are different rooms dedicated to exposing different aspects of the life of the ancient inhabitants of America. Among the pieces that stand out, we can speak of human skeletal remains, animals, fossilized plants and tools for hunting that were found in the region of the basin of Mexico.

In addition, the different audiovisual and didactic materials, as well as talks and guides, focus on making known the different theories about the evolution of man, world migration and the population of America.

The Tepexpan museum depends on the government of Mexico and is a tourist attraction for national and international travelers. It is suitable for all audiences and is also completely free.

References

1. Igareta, A., & Schavelzon, D. (2017). South of the Rio Grande: Helmut de Terra and his work in Tepexpan.
2. Matos Moctezuma, E. (sf-b). Was “the man from Tepexpan” really a man? Recovered from arqueologiamexicana.mx
3. Secretary of Culture. (sf). Tepexpan Museum. Recovered from sic.gob.mx
4. Olmo Calzada, M., & Montes Villalpando, AC (2011). The Museum of Tepexpan and the study of Prehistory in Mexico.
5. Isotope analysis dates ancient Mexican. (2009). Recovered from planetearth.nerc.ac.uk