Editing Tulum (section)

==History and description==
<gallery mode='packed'>
File:MX -Tulum.png|Map of central Tulum
File:Tulum_Maya-13.jpg|Tulum Ruins
File:TulumCatherwood1844.jpg|Main temple at Tulum, lithograph in 1844 by [[Frederick Catherwood]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/image/759/temple-at-tulum-by-catherwood/|title=Temple at Tulum by Catherwood|year=1844|website=worldhistory.org}}</ref>
File:CastilloTulum.jpg|View to the top of El Castillo
</gallery>

The site might have been called '''Zama''', meaning ''City of Dawn,'' because it faces the sunrise. Tulum stands on a bluff facing east toward the [[Caribbean Sea]]. ''Tulúm'' is also the [[Yucatec Maya language|Yucatán Mayan]] word for ''fence'', ''wall''<ref name=apub/> or ''trench.'' The walls surrounding the site allowed the Tulum fort to be defended against invasions. Tulum had access to both land and sea trade routes, making it an important trade hub, especially for [[obsidian]]. From numerous depictions in murals and other works around the site, Tulum appears to have been an important site for the worship of the [[Ah-Muzen-Cab|Diving or Descending god]].<ref name=apub/>

Tulum was first mentioned by [[Juan Díaz (Spanish conquistador)|Juan Díaz]], a member of [[Juan de Grijalva]]'s Spanish expedition of 1518, the first Europeans to spot Tulum.<ref name=apub/> The first detailed description of the ruins was published by [[John Lloyd Stephens]] and [[Frederick Catherwood]] in 1843 in the book ''Incidents of Travel in Yucatan''. As they arrived from the sea, Stephens and Catherwood first saw a tall building that impressed them greatly, most likely the great Castillo of the site. They made accurate maps of the site's walls, and Catherwood made sketches of the Castillo and several other buildings. Stephens and Catherwood also reported an early classic [[Tulum Stela 1|stele]] at the site, with an inscribed date of AD 564 (now in the [[British Museum]]'s collection). This has been interpreted as meaning that the stele was likely built elsewhere and brought to Tulum to be reused.<ref>[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=657463&partId=1&place=13448&plaA=13448-3-1&page=1 British Museum Collection]</ref>

Work conducted at Tulum continued with that of [[Sylvanus Morley]] and George P. Howe, beginning in 1913. They worked to restore and open the public beaches. The work was continued by the [[Carnegie Institution]] from 1916 to 1922, Samuel Lothrop in 1924 who also mapped the site, Miguel Ángel Fernández in the late 1930s and early 1940s, William Sanders in 1956, and then later in the 1970s by [[Arthur G. Miller]]. Through these later investigations done by Sanders and Miller, it has been determined that Tulum was occupied during the late [[Postclassic]] period around AD 1200. The site continued to be occupied until contact with the Spanish was made in the early 16th century. The site was abandoned by the end of the 16th century.<ref name="Maya">''The Ancient Maya'', Robert J. Sharer and Loa P. Traxler, [[Stanford University]] Press 2006. pp. 608–611.</ref>

In 2016, an underwater archaeological expedition led by Jerónimo Avilés  exploring the cenote cave system discovered the skeleton of a female about 30 years of age that may be at least 9,900 years old. According to [[Craniometry|craniometric]] measurements, the skull is believed to conform to the [[Cephalic index|mesocephalic]] pattern, like the other three skulls found in Tulum caves. Three different scars on the skull of the woman showed that she was hit with something hard and her skull bones were broken. Her skull also had crater-like deformations and tissue deformities that appeared to be caused by a bacterial relative of [[syphilis]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Stinnesbeck|first1=Wolfgang|last2=Rennie|first2=Samuel R.|last3=Olguín|first3=Jerónimo Avilés|last4=Stinnesbeck|first4=Sarah R.|last5=Gonzalez|first5=Silvia|last6=Frank|first6=Norbert|last7=Warken|first7=Sophie|last8=Schorndorf|first8=Nils|last9=Krengel|first9=Thomas|last10=Morlet|first10=Adriana Velázquez|last11=González|first11=Arturo González|date=2020-02-05|title=New evidence for an early settlement of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico: The Chan Hol 3 woman and her meaning for the Peopling of the Americas|journal=PLOS ONE|language=en|volume=15|issue=2|pages=e0227984|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0227984|issn=1932-6203|pmc=7001910|pmid=32023279|bibcode=2020PLoSO..1527984S|doi-access=free}}</ref>

According to study lead researcher Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, "It really looks as if this woman had a very hard time and an extremely unhappy end of her life. Obviously, this is speculative, but given the traumas and the pathological deformations on her skull, it appears a likely scenario that she may have been expelled from her group and was killed in the cave, or was left in the cave to die there”.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

The newly discovered skeleton was 140 meters away from the [[Chan Hol]] 2 site. Although archeologists assumed the divers found the remains of the missing Chan Hol 2, the analysis proved that these assumptions were erroneous in a short time. Stinnesbeck compared the new bones to old photographs of Chan Hol 2 and showed that the two skeletons represent different individuals.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.livescience.com/early-american-underwater-cave.html|title=9,900-year-old skeleton of horribly disfigured woman found in Mexican cave |last=Geggel |first=Laura  |website=Live Science|date=5 February 2020|language=en|access-date=2020-03-19}}</ref>

Due to their distinctive features, study co-researcher Samuel Rennie suggest the existence of at least two morphologically diverse groups of people living separately in Mexico during the transition from [[Pleistocene]] to [[Holocene]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://scitechdaily.com/9900-year-old-skeleton-discovered-in-submerged-mexican-cave-has-a-distinctive-skull/|title=9,900-Year-Old Skeleton Discovered in Submerged Mexican Cave Has a Distinctive Skull|agency=''[[PLOS ONE]]''|date=2020-02-05|website=SciTechDaily|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-19}}</ref>