Chapter Five

The following morning, lying in bed, Elizabeth heard Sam jabbering away at Nainai while allegedly helping her in the walled vegetable garden. Elizabeth snorted at the idea of Sam the lush doing anything remotely useful, then she began to dress.

As she pulled on her jeans and a striped Breton top, Elizabeth’s nose indicated to her that she should investigate the kitchen. Drifting down the hallway, Elizabeth realised why: Taid was cooking cawl mamgu. Welsh soup! No wonder her nose was quivering. Taid’s delectable lamb and leek soup was Elizabeth’s absolute favourite.

Taid was usually banned from the kitchen by Elizabeth’s grandmothers due to the phenomenal mess he created. Normally, the only reason Grandmère and Nainai relented was if Taid had badgered someone into cleaning up after him. Elizabeth wondered who Taid’s victim was today. As she entered the kitchen, Taid turned and gave Elizabeth one of his twinkle-eyed smiles. Uh-oh.

‘Bore da, Taid. Sut da chi?’ Good morning, Taid, how are you?

‘Da iawn, diolch. Paned o de?’ he replied.

‘A cup of tea would be lovely, thanks,’ Elizabeth said, sitting at the breakfast bar. ‘Okay, I have to ask. How did you convince the Grand High Council of Grandmothers to let you cook today?’

‘I told them you’d be my sous chef,’ Taid replied, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Elizabeth almost smiled in return, but stopped herself. The idea of spending the morning with Taid was appealing, but she couldn’t make it too easy for him. She looked pointedly at the carnage of used knives, dirty spoons and vegetable peelings strewn from one end of the kitchen to the other.

‘Really? I don’t remember agreeing to be your serf. What if I want to do free-person things today?’

‘Why, for you my Beth bach, I would clean up after myself,’ Taid countered, teaspoon tinkling in freshly poured Earl Grey. ‘There must be sufficient cawl to sustain you through the coming winter months!’

‘How very self-sacrificing of you, Taid bach.’

He smirked.

‘But really. What if I was busy?’ Elizabeth asked, reaching for her favourite Eeyore mug.

Taid looked directly at her.

‘Whether you are or not, I need to talk with you soon. You were so quiet at dinner last night that your grandmothers and I agreed that something must be bothering you. So Cho will keep Samantha busy in the garden, and Madeleine has taken Mathieu to the markets to give us some space. If you’re free, of course.’

A swirl of playful responses sprang to mind, but all Elizabeth could manage was, ‘Okay.’

As she sipped her tea, Elizabeth noticed the cats drift into the kitchen, targeting the warm slate tiles. As soon as they saw Elizabeth’s grandfather, however, they sensibly diverted to the cooler conservatory. The mixing of Taid’s feet with reposing felines usually resulted in both ruffled fur and feelings. For some reason, he simply couldn’t master the tail-and-paw shuffle.

‘Let’s get to it then,’ Taid said. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind, or do I need to ply you with a biscuit first?’

‘Biscuit.’

Taid placed a large lemon and currant Welsh dragon in front of Elizabeth. The icing was superb, sweet and tangy.

‘Well?’

‘Delicious.’

Taid removed steaming chunks of lamb from a now unctuous stock, and swapped Elizabeth’s empty biscuit plate for one piled high with neck chops for her to deflesh. Elizabeth began plucking small morsels from the rosettes, splattering herself with droplets of hot fat.

‘Beth, come on.’

Oh well, here goes nothing. ‘I’ve been offered a job back in archaeology,’ she blurted.

Taid tensed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Juan de Montoya from my honours year came to see me at the Library yesterday. He’s working on an Olmec site in Mexico. He said they found skeletal remains that have been brought here for analysis. He invited me to join the team. I’d be on any papers that were published, but there’s no money in it.’

‘That sounds exciting, Beth. You should be excited, too. What aren’t you saying?’

Elizabeth considered her answer as she cleaned the lenses of her weekend glasses with a teatowel.

‘Well, I could only do the work on Saturdays. In fact, Juan asked me to go and meet the team leader, Carl, at the lab next Saturday. But I can’t, really, because it would mean I’d be out of the house six days a week, and I’d have to miss Saturdays with Matty.’

Taid shook his head.

‘You work so hard all week for us, there’s no way we’d ask you not to do this.’ He smiled. ‘We’d just have to make the most of our Sundays together, Mathieu included.’

Elizabeth bit the inside of her lower lip.

‘I haven’t seen Matty with any friends lately, and he avoids all my questions about it. Has he had anyone over after school?’

‘No,’ Taid sighed. ‘He seems to be withdrawing again, coming straight home and going to his room. He has to be measured for his next surgeries soon, so I think that’s what’s behind it.’

‘Doesn’t that make my Saturdays with him even more important?’

‘No, Beth. You have already put your career on hold for the family – which we appreciate no end – but there’s no need for martyrdom. You love archaeology, full stop. And we’re all here for Mathieu. You should go to the laboratory next Saturday and meet this Carl, then make a decision based on nothing other than what you want for yourself.’

Elizabeth’s initial excitement at publishing a skeletal analysis for such an important site returned. ‘All right,’ she said, nodding.

‘Excellent,’ said Taid, nodding back. They grinned at each other. ‘I think it might prove very rewarding. Now, I remember you mentioning the Olmecs somewhere early in your first degree. Why don’t you go to that special “library” of yours soon and look over what you already know?’

Elizabeth had planned to do just that – there were multiple tomes of Mesoamerican archaeology on the shelves of her phrenic library.

An hour or so later Elizabeth felt a surge of happiness as she watched Taid ladle the last of the soup into containers. There was a certain comfort in knowing that in winter, when icy winds lashed the house, she could pull a jar out of the freezer and wrap herself in the culinary equivalent of a warm blanket.

Taid adjourned to his library for the afternoon with tea and bara brith. The cats, sensing safety, wafted from their cane chairs in the conservatory to find warm spots from the kitchen’s underfloor heating.

As she prepared to mop the black-and-white chequerboard floor, Elizabeth marvelled at Taid’s ability to create a mess. His ability to utterly devastate the kitchen every time he cooked defied explanation. There were splashes of grease on the black marble bench, the white splashback tiles and across the adjoining walls. Elizabeth shook her head, clapped her hands to urge the cats out of the kitchen and began cleaning.

As she mopped she resolved to ring Juan first thing Monday morning and agree to meet him at the lab next Saturday. By Khaenweset, in just one week’s time she would be back where she belonged.

—

The following Friday night Elizabeth lay in bed, rigid with tension, excitement and uncertainty. As she breathed out, she was aware of Seshet pressed against her under the blanket. Thoth, on top of the covers, snuggled in the dip between Elizabeth’s knees. The steam rising from a pot of apple tea on her bedside table helped her to relax. She couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time.

Elizabeth hadn’t visited her phrenic library since completing her diploma last year. She wondered what had changed in her absence.

Grasping her cartouche in her right hand, she closed her eyes.

Elizabeth opened the lightly carved rosewood door to reveal an infinitely long, narrow room. To her left, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and deep-set bay windows alternated along the wall. To her right lay a carefully constructed fireplace scene, and beyond that, display cases of ancient treasures stretched into the distance.

As usual upon entering, Elizabeth paused to observe the room.

On this occasion there was an ornately studded armchair in front of the fireplace. Its matching ottoman presented the library’s most delightful occupant: Billy. Eyes closed, arms outstretched, Billy yawned, opened his eyes, sat up and demanded a pat.

She scratched the top of his ginger head and continued to scan the room. The air was pleasantly cool, reassuring. Sunlight glowed through gently snaking gauze curtains.

Moving to the closest shelf, she reached for the first book she had ever read on Mesoamerican archaeology.

Elizabeth sank into the leather wing chair in the library of her mind and began to read.

She flipped through chapters covering early Mexican archaeology and the work of Alfonso Caso and Ignacio Bernal. She located a short section on writing in Mesoamerica, comparisons with the Incan knot language, disputed interpretations of the Cascajal block, and…ahh, that’s why the writing in the Juluwik cave was so significant: the carvings there predated the currently accepted earliest Mesoamerican writing by centuries!

Skimming over sections on the Aztecs, Toltecs and Mayans, Elizabeth found an introductory chapter on Olmec archaeology. Right: here were Gertrude and Matthew Stirling, pioneering Olmec archaeologists. Here were pyramids to rival Egypt’s finest, enormous Olmec stone heads, and the possible origin of the Mesoamerican obsession with corn, fertility and the rubber ballgame.

Like the Egyptians on the Nile, Harappans on the Indus, Chinese on the Yangzi and Sumerians on the Tigris, the Olmec culture had emerged along a river, the Coatzacoalcos in tropical mid-Mexico. A fascinating culture: on the one hand they developed a complex calendar, the concept of zero, and wonderful jade, obsidian and ceramic art. On the other, their world view seemed to be dominated by fear and a need to appease invisible forces. Ritual bloodletting was popular. They even had bog sacrifices reminiscent of the Celts’.

Elizabeth continued to flip through the volume. Ah, here were the obligatory fringe theories of origin: the Olmecs were a group of globe-trotting sub-Saharan Africans. They were a group of globe-trotting Mormons. They were a globe-trotting lost tribe of Israel.

Elizabeth looked at Billy and shook her head. Ancient African invasions of Mexico – really? But then she cautioned herself. There actually had been groups of Chinese, South Pacific Islanders and Vikings who made it to the Americas long before Columbus…as had the indigenous inhabitants, of course. There was even good archaeological evidence of trade, either direct or via intermediaries, between ancient Egypt and ancient Peru. So perhaps the idea wasn’t so far-fetched.

The ‘evidence’ cited to support the sub-Saharan African theory of Olmec origin brought a smile to Elizabeth’s face: it was true persuado-science. Elizabeth had first coined the term – a deliberate mispronunciation of ‘pseudoscience’ – in response to Taid’s tongue-in-cheek assertion that Welsh explorers had roamed the planet in ancient times. Like a child cutting the corners off a puzzle piece to make it fit, then proudly declaring the puzzle finished, Taid had reverse-engineered much archaeological and genetic evidence to support his worldwide Welsh theory. Elizabeth had laughingly interrupted his exposition to remind him that the Patagonian Welsh colonies were only founded in the mid-1800s.

Hmmm. Tangential thought process. She needed to focus.

Okay, nothing here was specific to the biological anthropology of Mesoamerica. Time to concentrate and retrieve everything she had ever read on Mesoamerican archaeology.

Sitting up straight in her phrenic library’s wing chair, Elizabeth closed her eyes. In the buzzing darkness she saw book spines, diagrams, photographs and journal articles whiz past her. Tomes on Mesoamerican art, writing and architecture piled one on top of the other next to her on a beautiful zelij-tile side table.

Flicking through them, Elizabeth realised there was nothing here on skeletal remains or genetics. How could she not have read anything on Mesoamerican palaeogenetics?

She checked the publication date of a number of items. Right! These were all from her first year at university, before she became captive to biological anthropology. Most of this material was close to ten years old…She definitely needed to do some research to bring herself up to date.

She would go to the lab tomorrow and meet Carl Schmidt. If she agreed to work for him, she could catch up by studying Olmec archaeology in the evening.

Leaning back in her wing chair, Elizabeth directed each of the books to return to their rightful place on the shelves of her library. Smiling fondly at the marvellous refuge she had created for herself, she reached out to give Billy a pat goodbye.

—

Early the next morning Elizabeth carefully picked out an outfit to complement her Welsh-green eyes and light honey skin. Over black cargo pants she added layered singlets of dark green and black, and a black jacket teamed with a pale lime-green scarf. She would need to wear sunglasses when driving, so she popped in her contacts. Her rich chestnut hair, which insisted on a style Elizabeth thought of as ‘bouffant,’ engulfed her face in its usual unrepentant waves.

Elizabeth couldn’t face breakfast, but she did want coffee. As she poured herself a cup, Grandmère Maddie pressed a petit en case on her. Elizabeth made a show of securing this emergency supply of nuts and dried fruit in her satchel, then exited the kitchen through the door to the garage.

The roads were empty. As Elizabeth drove she tried to breathe deeply and relax. She was hit with a barrage of memories instead: her first day at university, her first lecture, meeting Luke, and working next to Rhys Jones, archaeological legend and Welsh compatriot of her grandfather.

Pulling into the car park closest to the laboratory, Elizabeth paused. What if she didn’t like Carl, or worse, he didn’t want her to work for him? Elizabeth drew in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let it out slowly as she exited the car.

As she walked to the building’s lower entrance, where the laboratory lay half-sunk into the ground, Elizabeth felt the edges of an old happiness – her unreasoning love of archaeology and the joy it brought her. She had never found the words to explain it adequately to anyone, not even Taid. There was no reason to it – it just felt right. She could be brushing dirt away from fragments of stone, or reconstructing an earthen­ware bowl, or piecing together the lives of humans long past, it didn’t matter. In that world she felt whole, free, complete.

Elizabeth didn’t have to wait long inside at the lab’s door. Two sets of footsteps echoed down the stairwell at the end of the corridor. Juan’s Spanish accent rang out as he and another man rounded the corner.

‘Hola, Elizabeth. This is Dr Carl Schmidt,’ Juan said, looking at the taller man with something akin to infatuation.

Carl reached for Elizabeth’s hand, his pale-blue eyes meeting hers. Goodness! With his exceptionally pale skin and dark wavy hair, Carl was strikingly handsome.

‘Hello Elizabeth, very pleased to meet you. Thank you for coming in on your weekend.’

Elizabeth returned his greeting. He seemed pleasant.

‘Shall we?’ Carl inserted a key into the laboratory door, ushering her inside.

Stepping into the lab ahead of the two men, Elizabeth was flooded with exhilaration. Her delight in the minutiae of archaeology had always been accepted here at the university. It was almost intoxicating to be back.

Carl was waxing lyrical about Juluwik and his hopes for an initial publication in just two months’ time. Elizabeth wasn’t listening. Her mind recorded the conversation between Carl and Juan for analysis later, and focused instead on the lab.

Everything in the room was a little old and broken down: shabby, dirty white walls, dreadful green carpet tiles, cheap Formica benches and cupboards with flimsy locks. Elizabeth breathed deeply…and that strange smell. Not bad, exactly, just musty in a way that no amount of fresh air could ever hope to shift. By the gods had she missed this place!

‘As Juan would have told you,’ Carl was saying, ‘we have seventeen skeletons so far. Three adult males, one adult female – that’s the ballplayer – and thirteen juveniles. The most exciting part about the site is, of course, the writing, but the fact that we have a royal cemetery here will also attract a lot of attention.’

Elizabeth made a noise of acknowledgement. In the corner she spied Fred, the laboratory’s skeleton, an ex-six foot two Scandinavian man. Poor Fred. He was regularly kidnapped by undergrad students and strapped to one of the horses on the city centre’s carousel.

Juan unlocked one of the cupboards and shuttled boxes onto a work bench as Carl pulled on some latex gloves.

‘So, Elizabeth, I’m sure you’re as eager as everyone else to be part of such a significant site,’ Carl said. ‘Do you have any questions?’

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth snapped out of her reverie. ‘I’d like to understand how the site was discovered, how far the excavation has progressed and how large it is.’

‘Some good questions,’ Carl replied. ‘The site was first discovered more than a year ago. Someone’s dog became lost in the jungle near Juluwik. The dog somehow got stuck in the cave, and the locals had to dig it out. Once inside they saw the relief on the wall. Thankfully, they were civic-minded enough to ring the local museum instead of looting the site for treasure.’

‘Lupita’s people are civilised, Carl!’ Juan objected.

‘You know what I mean, Juan. Many people would put making a quick profit ahead of preserving history.’

‘Perhaps.’ Juan seemed placated.

‘I’m quite well known at the museums in Mexico,’ Carl continued, ‘so they contacted me and asked me to do an initial assessment. Once I saw the carvings on the wall of the cave, I knew it was an important site. I explored the area using thermal imaging, and was amazed to discover the foundations of a huge ceremonial complex, maybe even larger than San Lorenzo!’

Elizabeth warmed towards Carl’s passion for his subject.

‘Fortunately, Juan was already working for me at Tajinel, and agreed to move to Juluwik. He was able to translate some of the writing immediately. Once he worked out the words for ‘royal’ and ‘burial’, I knew it was the site of a royal cemetery. Using ground-penetrating radar, I could see the grave goods. When we dug up the floor of the cave I was amazed that the skeletal remains were so intact.’

‘They are very remarkable, Elizabeth,’ Juan said. ‘You will be happy to work on them.’

‘I haven’t agreed yet.’ Elizabeth smiled politely at both men.

‘Indeed,’ Carl said. ‘Although Juan completed an initial assessment of the skeletal remains, I need him to focus on other things. None of my other team members in Mexico have a background in skeletal analysis, and since we’re funded by the uni, I shipped the remains back here. I intended for one of the PhD students to work on them, but he’s heading to Africa for his fieldwork. So Juan suggested you. He said you’re the best.’

Juan, standing slightly behind Carl, nodded his agreement.

‘It’s an incredible opportunity,’ Carl said. ‘A ground­break­ing discovery like this could make all our careers. It could certainly help win funding for the next phase of my program. After this season, I’d like to expand the project to three full-time teams for at least the next five years.’

It was only two years since Elizabeth had worked at the university. She didn’t remember Carl being around then, she realised, but he seemed entrenched now. When had he arrived? She would ask Tanya the next time they Skyped – Tanya knew all the gossip.

‘How many excavations are you running in Mexico?’ she asked. ‘And how many are linked to the research program here?’

Carl beamed. ‘It’s an interesting story. It all came together about two years ago, when I was in Córdoba, brushing up on my Spanish.’

Elizabeth was puzzled. Carl was in Córdoba just before Juluwik was discovered?

‘That’s a bit of a coincidence,’ she said, before he could continue.

‘Hmmm? Yes, I suppose so,’ Carl answered, opening the first box. ‘Why don’t I tell you about it as we look over the remains? Here’s our ball-playing lady,’ he said, lifting a strangely misshapen cranium into the light.

The forehead of the skull sloped backwards to form an extremely high, long plane, making the skull look larger than normal and slightly alien. Elizabeth gasped. Artificial cranial deformation. Fantastic!

‘Or, we can go into it another time,’ said Carl, smiling at the look on Elizabeth’s face.

Elizabeth was utterly captivated. This was archaeology. The weird and wonderful things human beings did to themselves, the traces they left, and the stories told by their remains. When did this woman’s ancestors first realise they could shape a baby’s head without hurting them? How had this particular deformation been performed? Why? What significance did it have? Was it seen as beautiful? Or did it signify a particular place in society? So many questions.

Elizabeth was aware that both Carl and Juan were staring at her.

‘What do you think?’ Carl asked.

‘Well, there’s obviously artificial cranial deformation. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it, Juan,’ Elizabeth said.

‘I thought you knew, no?’ Juan said. ‘This practice is common in early Mesoamerican people.’

‘No, Elizabeth,’ Carl said. ‘I meant, what do you think about contributing to the first publication? It’s possible we’ll discover more cemeteries like this, too. It would be good to have a single person work on them, especially someone who is as talented as you.’

Elizabeth knew Carl was trying to flatter her into agreeing to undertake the work, but she didn’t care. She felt solid and real for the first time in more than a year. How could she say no?

‘And here’s her effigy. Or, at least, that’s what we think it is.’ Carl pulled a small clay statue from another box.

It looked like a figurine for a B-grade movie about topless women competing in rollerskate derbies, right down to the rounded crash helmet with side straps. How bizarre! The figurine may have been a three-thousand-year-old depiction of a woman playing a gruelling and violent forerunner to basketball, but it would also be right at home among modern movie merchandise.

‘Arresting, isn’t it?’ Carl asked.

‘Yes, it is,’ Elizabeth replied. She knew there was no point in trying to hide her eagerness now. ‘So, how would this work?’

‘Juan told me you work at the Mahony Griffin during the week, so I thought you could come in on weekends?’

Elizabeth nodded.

‘Did Juan tell you that I can’t afford to pay you at the moment?’ Carl asked. ‘So it would be voluntary, at least for now.’

‘Yes, he told me,’ Elizabeth said, glancing at Juan. He had a look on his face she couldn’t interpret. ‘I need to discuss it with my family first, but I’d like to come in next Saturday and see how it goes.’

‘That sounds good. Let’s pack this lady away for now,’ Carl said, gesturing at Juan to take care of it. He handed an envelope to Elizabeth. ‘Here’s a set of keys to the lab.’

Elizabeth didn’t mention that she still had her own set in a drawer at home, left over from her doctoral days.

‘How about you come in and make a start next Saturday morning, and I’ll come in later in the day to see how you’re going?’ Carl said.

‘That sounds good,’ Elizabeth agreed.

‘Excellent.’

‘I predicted you would say yes, Elizabeth,’ Juan said.

‘Yes, you did.’ Elizabeth reminded herself to smile. ‘Are the records for the site in the same cupboards as the skeletal remains? I’ll start looking at them next week, too.’

‘Yes,’ Carl said.

As they left the lab, Elizabeth decided she’d start with a basic assessment of all the remains, see where that led, and try to have a draft report to Carl in a fortnight. Opening her car door she felt another wave of elation. She couldn’t wait to spend more time with the ballplayer and her companions.

—

At five o’clock the following Saturday morning Elizabeth finally gave up on sleep. She had lain awake most of the night, willing dawn to come closer. Carl planned to come into the lab at the end of the day and she wanted to have made real progress by then.

Disentangling herself from a sleepy Seshet and a grumpy Thoth, Elizabeth wished the cats weren’t so possessive of her body heat. With the nights getting cooler they no longer slept on the balcony but crawled under the covers and attached themselves to her. Even a semicircle of light scratches on her thigh couldn’t dim her mood now, though. She was returning to her first great love today. No offence to Luke, of course.

After dressing, Elizabeth donned her precious cartouche necklace. She smiled at the graduation present from her father. He had been so proud of her the day she walked across the stage in her graduate robes. He would have been proud of her today, too, she was sure.

Elizabeth packed pens, pencils, paper, ruler, scale, camera and laptop into her Rosetta Stone-print satchel. Pausing to run her palm over the cherished knapsack, she recalled the hours she spent in the bowels of the British Museum of Natural History. The three months she spent there, collecting data from the Petrie collection for her PhD, were the highlight of her life until those few brief weeks in Egypt. Perhaps that would be replaced by a new high point now that she was going to work on a record-breaking find from the Americas. Yay!

As she descended the stairs to the foyer, Elizabeth was so deeply immersed in her thoughts that she didn’t see Nainai waiting for her at the bottom.

‘Ní hǎo, xiǎo Yīlìshābái.’

‘Nín hǎo, Nainai!’ Elizabeth exclaimed, trying to slow her heartbeat as her adrenaline surged. She wouldn’t need coffee now.

‘Come into the kitchen,’ Nainai said. ‘We have a surprise for you.’ Not for the first time, Elizabeth was struck by how much better Nainai Cho’s English was than Grandmère Maddie’s.

Grandmère Maddie and Taid were waiting for them in the kitchen with a plunger of French vanilla coffee and an oven tray of mouth-watering apricot and custard pastries. A gorgeous little woven picnic basket lay open on the bench, displaying a packed lunch of chicken salad sandwiches and Welsh dragon biscuits. A thermos and her unbreakable Eeyore mug sat beside the box. Elizabeth’s soul swelled with affection for her grandparents. They must have risen very early to prepare such lovely treats for her.

‘You are lit up from the inside, my lovely Beth bach,’ Taid said. ‘Good luck today.’

As she drove to the lab, still glowing from her grandparents’ endearing gesture, Elizabeth’s thoughts turned to her week’s research. In the evenings she had read everything she could find on Mesoamerican artificial cranial deformation, the likely diet and lifestyle of her skeletal population, and the injuries a serious player of the ballgame could expect.

The method of ballplay had varied across time and geography, but centred on using the hips, upper arms or legs to force a heavy ball of solid rubber up and through a vertical hoop. Degree of difficulty: way higher than basketball. Rebounding three or four kilos of solid rubber off your hipbone must have really hurt. Despite wearing helmets, thick padding over the whole pelvic girdle, and often massive arm protectors, the players sustained injuries from both the impact of the ball and from falling to the ground afterwards.

During the week Elizabeth had also worked out her approach to the skeletal analysis. She would start with all the basic analyses Carl could ask for, then see if there was anything special she could add. Perhaps a dental non-metrics analysis? That might allow her to write a second paper where she would be the primary author. Fingers crossed.

Once inside the lab, Elizabeth found she had to open the windows despite the cold. The room had apparently been used for a wet anatomy class the day before and it really needed airing. The smell of pungent formaldehyde mixed with rotting flesh created a lingering, cloying sweetness that invaded the sinuses. Ugh. Elizabeth didn’t like wet anatomy. Just the bones, thank you very much.

Wrapped tightly against the frosty air, her scarf wound so thick about her neck she had difficulty turning her head, Elizabeth reverentially opened the cupboard containing the skeletal remains. It was almost like a ceremony from her own personal religion.

Ffwrdd a ni! Let’s go!

Elizabeth had some difficulty switching on her laptop because of her thick woollen gloves. Despite the smell she would have to close the windows to make the room warm enough to work in. She managed to open the spreadsheet she had prepared for recording her data: a basic skeletal description, sex and age of each individual, then more detailed metric and non-metric aspects of the remains. By combining that with scaled photographs, she’d be off to a flying start on her report.

She decided to browse the Juluwik site records while the room warmed up. They confirmed what Carl and Juan had told her. There were seventeen skeletons from sixteen burials – thirteen juveniles and infants of various ages, and four adults. That was a strange mix for a royal cemetery, wasn’t it?

Elizabeth decided to start her examination with the juveniles. She searched the shelves for the stiff brown cardboard boxes containing the two smallest individuals. The first box slipped between her hands as she tried to pick it up; she definitely had to take off her woollen gloves.

As the temperature slowly climbed above freezing, Elizabeth laid out her navy blue felted sheet. It would protect the bones and help keep them still as she worked.

She donned latex gloves and, almost vibrating with excitement, began with the second-smallest set of remains, and the smallest individual burial. The gloves would maintain the integrity of the bones for possible future DNA analysis. Worryingly, she could see grease marks on some of the smoother parts of the infant’s long bones. That made her angry – someone who worked on these bones previously hadn’t shown the appropriate level of care.

Elizabeth painstakingly laid out the tiny bones to form a rough skeleton. As Juan said, it was remarkably well preserved given the climate in the jungles of Mexico. The bones appeared to be that of a fully formed neonate, an infant who had died at or near the time of birth. There were no signs of the artificial cranial deformation that she had seen in the ballplayer, but that was to be expected if this were a stillborn or perinatal death.

Elizabeth measured, described and photographed the skeleton, then packed its remains away and brought out the box containing the smallest set of remains. This child was found between the ballplayer’s legs, indicating that she may have been its mother. Elizabeth estimated that the remains were of an individual with a gestational age of around seven to eight months. Again, they were in excellent condition. She wondered what had happened to facilitate such exceptional preservation at the site.

The room was beginning to warm up now. Elizabeth noticed the sun had risen as she put the infant away and brought out the first of the juveniles. There were eleven in total. Over the course of the next few hours, stopping only for sandwiches and a cup of tea, Elizabeth examined them one by one. As she observed the juvenile bones, a picture of what they might represent started to form.

Five sets of remains seemed to be from children aged somewhere around five or six years, another four seemed to be around eight to ten years old, and two were perhaps around thirteen or fourteen. Given their youth, none of them bore any signs of the sexual dimorphism that developed in later teenage years, meaning there were no clues as to gender.

The most striking aspect of the remains was that they fell into two distinct groups of artificial cranial deformation. The eldest two children, two of the middle group and three of the youngest had the same flat, elongated head as the ballplayer. The other four skulls were square, almost cube-like.

Both groups had indications of differing health problems. The four square-headed children had an unusually enlarged parietal foramen – a hole on the side of the temple that allowed blood vessels through, which had grown far too large. These four probably suffered from headaches, even seizures, as a result.

The children with the elongated crania seemed to have suffered from worse overall health than the square-headed ones, though. While their dentition indicated they were of similar ages to the square-headed children, their skeletal growth was not as advanced. Elizabeth would ask if the team’s funding could stretch to x-rays to look for Harris lines, which might confirm her suspicion of poorer nutrition among the long-headed children.

Despite the two types of cranial deformation, and the enlarged parietal foramen in one set, overall the group of eleven juveniles seemed remarkably homogenous. What was Elizabeth seeing here? Two lineages within the one extended family, one that was royal, one that was less favoured but still noble? Or was she reaching?

Annoyingly, there were no clues pointing to cause of death for any of the children. Whether they died from accident, disease or congenital problems, Elizabeth couldn’t tell. Unfortunately, humans across the globe had demonstrated a propensity to murder children for political or financial advantage, so homicide was a possibility as well.

It crossed Elizabeth’s mind that these children may have been religious sacrifices, some form of bargaining with other­worldly powers. Was child sacrifice known among the Olmecs? Bloodletting, certainly: numerous ceremonial thorns, used to pierce flesh to free the blood of prayer, had been uncovered. And there was reason to suspect Olmec ballplayers might be sacrificed after high-stakes games. But what of the child sacrifice practised by later Mesoamerican cultures? Did it begin in Olmec times? More to research!

Packing away the boxes, Elizabeth realised it was early afternoon. She had best get going on the adults. At least there were only four of them.

She started with the ballplayer. This woman had been around thirty years of age at death. She had the same elongated artificial cranial deformation as seven of the eleven juveniles and, as expected, her post-cranial remains showed evidence of the severe injuries associated with the iconic and violent Mesoamerican ballgame.

At different times she had broken both arms, both collar­bones, some ribs, and she had chipped shards of bone from her hips. Ouch! All of the injuries had healed, though, meaning it was unlikely any of them related to her death. There was some pitting of the bones in her knees, hands and hips, indicating a fair amount of time spent grinding corn. And she had signifi­cant pitting within her pelvic girdle, signifying multiple pregnancies.

Finishing her notes on the ballplayer, Elizabeth returned the bones to their shelf and brought out the next adult. Juan’s notes indicated a seventy-year-old male – quite an age for someone back then.

Hang on, there must be a mistake. This wasn’t a male. It was clearly a female: a small mastoid process, the ballooning of bone behind the ear; no discernible brow ridge; light muscle markings on the skull and long bones. What had gone wrong? A mix-up with the boxes?

Elizabeth crosschecked the numbers on the boxes against this particular skeleton’s femurs. This was the correct skeleton. But it was a female. And – she checked for pitting inside the female-shaped pelvis – this person had probably given birth at least once or twice. How could Juan have been so wrong?

Elizabeth completed her assessment of the skeleton, just as she had for the ballplayer. Again, no obvious signs of trauma associated with death. She seemed to have been around sixty years of age when she died, not seventy. She showed only minor pitting of her hands, knees and hips, indicating minimal time spent grinding corn. Her head was a third, new shape of artificial cranial deformation – more conical, but with the same enlarged parietal foramen as the square-headed children. Curiouser and curiouser.

Laying out the next skeleton, Elizabeth could see something was wrong again. Juan had assessed it as a fifty-year-old male. He was probably close on the age, but again not the sex. This was clearly another female. What was going on here? Juan hadn’t been great at skeletal analysis during their undergraduate degree, but he wasn’t as incompetent as this.

Elizabeth thought back to her conversation with Juan and Carl last week. Juan had mentioned the grave goods and that the skeletons were male and royal. He couldn’t have been that lazy, surely? Had he simply sexed the skeletons based on their grave goods?

That made no sense. Juan knew how thorough Elizabeth was. Surely he realised she would uncover the truth. Then again, Juan didn’t think like that. He didn’t conceive of himself as someone who made mistakes.

Elizabeth returned her focus to the remains in front of her. This woman had the same elongated cranium as the ballplayer. A lifetime of grinding corn, as well as at least one or two pregnancies, had left their marks.

Packing the remains away in the cupboard, Elizabeth shivered. She was amazed to see it was dark outside. She had been here the whole day, yet it felt like only five minutes.

As she laid out the final Juluwik skeleton, Elizabeth cautioned herself not to make any assumptions. Juan said this was a mid-thirties male, but who knew? As she examined the cranium, though, Elizabeth thought she had made a mistake herself. Surely this was the first adult she examined, the ballplayer? She retrieved the box that should have contained the skull of the ballplayer and opened it…No, there she was. And now that Elizabeth looked closely, she could see there were minor differences between the two crania.

Scanning the rest of the fourth adult’s remains, Elizabeth could see this woman was quite different to the ballplayer post-cranially. She had no injuries consistent with playing the ballgame, but plenty of pitting in the knees and hands, indicating a life of daily corn grinding. How strange. The skulls were almost a pair, but the bodies weren’t.

Before Elizabeth could start a detailed examination of this last woman, a key turned in the lab door. Carl poked his head around the door, grinning.

‘How goes it?’ he asked. ‘Ready to publish next week?’ His eyes danced excitedly and a teasing grin played across his handsome face.

‘Oh, hello,’ Elizabeth said, not sure where to begin. She had already discovered so much, surely Carl would be impressed? ‘I’ve looked over all seventeen sets of remains today, and I’ve recorded good high-level observations for all of them, except this last one.’ Elizabeth indicated the remains in front of her.

‘Excellent.’

‘It’s very exciting!’ she continued, encouraged by Carl’s smile. ‘I think, for some reason, Juan missed some of the age and sex markers on these adults. There aren’t any males here. As far as I can tell, all the adults are female. There’s a remarkable level of preservation…’

Elizabeth was just warming to her subject when Carl cut her short, his eyes small and cold.

‘What do you mean, there aren’t any adult males here? Of course there are! Juan said there were. That’s what the grave goods and the writing in the cemetery say. Maybe you’re not very good at this after all.’

Elizabeth’s stomach dropped like a stone.

‘Do you honestly think I’m going to let an unpaid volunteer, who already abandoned a career in archaeology, bring down my theories? I will publish this, whether you like it or not. You’d better get on board with what we’re doing here, Elizabeth. The funding for this site, and the careers of many people, depend on it.’

Elizabeth’s heartbeat thumped in her ears.

‘I’ll see you back here at nine o’clock next Saturday,’ Carl snapped. ‘Make sure you have a good think this week about whether you want to belong to this team or not.’

Carl turned and strode out of the lab. The door shut softly behind him.

Elizabeth sank onto the nearest stool, numb.