200-Foot, Pre-Columbian Scorpion Mound Found In Mexico

Built using stones and soil sometime between 600 C.E. and 1100 C.E., this enormous effigy was likely used to track the Sun's path throughout the year.

A new study suggests that a giant, scorpion-shaped mound built hundreds of years ago in Mexico may have been created to track the winter and summer solstices.

Originally documented in 2014, the scorpion mound sits in the Tehuacán Valley, about 160 miles southeast of Mexico City. Artifacts found at the mound allowed archaeologists to estimate that it was created sometime between 600 C.E. and 1100 C.E.

The existence of the scorpion mound not only indicates that pre-Columbian Mesoamericans were tracking astronomical events, but that this wasn’t exclusive to the elite or ruling class. Archaeologists also uncovered multiple buried objects near