The fashion of football fans wearing their team colors during games (whether in the stadium or a local bar) has turned replica shirts into a US $10 billion industry. Nevertheless, many predict that there is plenty of growth left in the market, with a projection of it reaching $20 billion by the end of the decade. 

Some of the 2026 kits, made by Adidas and Puma, were released just before Christmas; those by Nike, as well as most “away” kits — also an important section of the market — are expected to come out in March and April. “Cool fans” often opt to wear these.

Football fashion in Mexico

When fans got their first look at this Cup’s Mexico shirt, there was a collective sigh of relief. Mexico has a reputation for producing some classic football shirts, both for the national team and for the Liga MX clubs. Although fashion is a matter of personal taste, Mexico did receive two nominations on “The 100 best football kits of all-time” list published by the British magazine FourFourTwo — one of the most accepted of such lists by fans.  Club America’s 1994/95 shirt took No. 20 on this list, and the Mexico World Cup shirt of 1998 was No. 16.

However, fans had a few concerns leading up to the release of the 2026 kit, as recent years had brought some underwhelming designs. The 2024 “peacock” shirt was unpopular, and in 2025, Mexico broke with tradition at the Gold Cup and played in black. Influenced by both Mariachi bands and the Mexica Empire, it was not a bad design, but it did not win the country’s soccer fans’ support, with many disapproving of the move away from the traditional green! 

Then, in April 2025, there was a buzz on the internet when pictures of the 2026 shirt and it appeared we were heading for another break from tradition: The leak revealed a green shirt with three thick vertical bars down the center, a design that appeared to be loosely based on the 1978 World Cup away shirt. 

This had been a reasonable design at the time, but it now looked dated. These early drafts of the 2026 shirt resulted in internet-wide cries of horror, and so Adidas went back to the drawing board.

Kudos on the current design for ‘El Tri’ in the 2026 FIFA World Cup

The design officially released has met with universal praise, being closely based on the classic design of 1998. What made that shirt so unique is that Mexico moved away from the big international sports companies, instead turning to a local firm, ABA Sport, which, since entering the market, had produced some excellent designs for Mexican clubs. 

The 1998 shirt used the standard green with red-and-white trims but drew from the country’s cultural heritage with the Mexica calendar incorporated into the design. This was a brave idea which could have flopped, and had the Mexica image been any more pronounced on the shirt, it would have looked far too cartoonish. Luckily, the image enhanced the design and didn’t dominate it. 

The 2026 shirt, while adapting much of the 1998 design, has used a more subtle motif, to good reviews — a welcome “return to the more daring,” according to the Cult Kit website, while the ESPN reviewer noted that the  “elaborate pattern and eagle crest are sure to elevate this to instant ‘modern classic’ status.” 

A 7-stage guide to the history of Mexican national team soccer shirts

1928-1954

When Mexico made its debut in a major international football tournament at the 1928 Olympics, the team played in dark-burgundy shirts with black or dark-navy shorts. It is uncertain why these colors were chosen above the green, red and white of the national flag. 

One story is that the dark-burgundy color was linked to the Mexica, who created a similar color by crushing the tiny insects that lived on the prickly pear cacti. That is an interesting historical fact, but there is no evidence that this inspired the modern football shirts. Given the snobbish attitude of the day — soccer was still strongly influenced by private sport clubs such as Reforma — the idea that the burgundy shirts were worn in honor of the Spanish National team might have traction. 

For whatever reason, Mexico used burgundy shirts with dark shorts for its first three World Cup tournaments and retained these colors as its second-choice uniform for many years after that. 

1950

Mexico arrived at the Estádio dos Eucaliptos Stadium in Porto Alegre, Brazil, for their last game of the 1950 tournament to find their burgundy kit clashed with the red shirts of their opponents, Switzerland. There was a 20-minute delay while the local side, Cruzeiro de Porto Alegre, rounded up their blue-and-white striped kit and lent it to the Mexicans. Incidentally, this happened again in 1978 when both France and Hungary arrived at the stadium with their second choice, white shirts. On that occasion, France played in the green-and-white stripes of the Argentinian Club Atlético Kimberley. 

1958

The switch to a green shirt with red-and-white trimmings, colors inspired by the Mexican flag, finally came at the 1956 Pan-American Games. The World Cup kit two years later was a plain green shirt with a touch of red on the white shorts. 

1962-1970

Green with various red-and-white touches has remained Mexico’s official colors in every World Cup since 1958. However, on several occasions, the team has reverted to the old burgundy colors for at least one of their games. This has not always been easy to explain. 

While one of the teams is obviously obliged to change colors if there is a clash, what constitutes a clash is more complicated than it might seem. Television audiences have to be considered, and that could be tricky in the days of black-and-white sets, when blue and green shirts might appear on screen as similar shades of grey. In addition, shirts that were fine for an afternoon game might pose problems for an evening match played under floodlights. 

Mexico tended to turn back to the darker shirts later in the tournament, leaving us to wonder if, after two games and two visits to the laundromat, the green shirts were simply feeling a little worn out.

1978

Mexico failed to qualify for the 1974 World Cup, and when they returned to the tournament in 1978,  burgundy had been dropped as their secondary color. For the opening game against Tunisia, they wore the new second jersey — a white shirt with broad vertical red and green bands — complemented by red shorts. The design was popular, but the tournament was a disaster for Mexico.

1994

The great Mexican goalkeeper Jorge Campos was famous for designing his own kit, and none were more outlandish than the “hurt your eyes” shirts he wore in the 1994 World Cup. These unforgettable neon-colored designs reportedly took inspiration from the colors of his native Guerrero. But at 1.70 m, Campos was also small for a goalkeeper, and it didn’t hurt that the shirts were designed to make him appear taller.

1998

An all-time classic, and a design that has influenced this year’s kit. Enough said.

2022 

Mexico stole the show in Qatar. Not only was the new green design a big fan favorite, but the second jersey with eye-catching Mexica designs in red was considered one of the best shirts of the tournament.

In a few months, thousands of supporters will be wearing the new shirts in the Azteca Stadium as they watch Mexico kick off their 18th World Cup campaign. It should be a colorful start!

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

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The same energy that brought Hernán Cortés to the land of the Mexica also took conquistadors further north, claiming Texas and a vast area of what is now the U.S. for Spain. This remote area attracted limited European migration, and the small numbers of settlers were never able to subdue the Indigenous people as firmly as Cortés and his handful of warriors had decimated the Mexica. As late as the 1800s, there were still only approximately 3,500 settlers living in the whole of Tejas. It didn’t even merit its own governor but was a neglected northern section known as Coahuila y Tejas.

Spanish Texas becomes Mexican

On the surface, little changed after Mexico gained independence in 1821, Spanish Texas simply becoming Mexican Texas. However, the region had been dependent on Spain for money, priests and manufactured goods, and Mexican independence saw the local economy shrink. Smugglers filled the gap for imported goods, and rancheros drove their cattle north to the illegal but more profitable U.S. markets.

To increase the number of settlers, Mexico encouraged migration from the U.S., and in January 1821, Moses Austin was granted permission to bring the first 1,200 families from Louisiana to Texas. Twenty of the first 23 such settlements were populated by immigrants from the U.S. These new communities tended to be self-contained, and people maintained a close affinity to the U.S. One area of conflict was the keeping of enslaved people, a practice Mexico had outlawed, but which many new colonists felt essential to their prosperity. The Mexican government, seeing itself becoming outnumbered in its own northern territory, introduced the Law of April 6, 1830, prohibiting any further immigration by U.S. citizens. 

The escalation of tensions

The situation simmered until 1833, when Antonio López de Santa Anna was elected president of Mexico and abolished the Constitution of 1824. This moved Mexico towards centralism. For Americans living in Texas, it was both a cause of concern and an excuse to start dreaming of independence. In 1835, Martín Perfecto de Cos, a man related to the Mexican President by marriage, arrived in Texas with 500 soldiers to shore up Mexican rule. After several small confrontations, events blew up in the Texas town of Gonzales.

The community had been loaned a small cannon for protection against the Native Americans, and with tensions on the rise, the Mexican government sent a strong force — 100 cavalry — to reclaim their artillery piece. The soldiers arrived at the Guadalupe River to find a small group of armed Texans on the other bank. The men refused to return the cannon, and as the Mexican army searched for a crossing point, more and more men rode in to confront them. A shot was fired, and the Mexicans, now outnumbered, retreated without the cannon. Nobody realized it at the time, but the Texas Revolution had started.

The Texas Revolution

At this stage, unrest in Texas was less a political movement and more a general rumbling against taxes and central government, but buoyed by their success at Gonzales, a mob of Texans marched towards San Antonio de Béxar. The town had a population of around 2,000, mostly Spanish speakers who supported Mexican rule but were largely unpolitical and just wanted to get on with life. The community centred around the plaza and cathedral, and just one block from the center, you would find simple houses that sat on the edge of their own cultivated fields. In response to raids by the Native Americans, there were several fortified missionary buildings, including the Alamo, which was separated from the main town by the San Antonio River.

The Texans, who were described at the time as “a motley bunch of ruffians with fewer guns than men, short on powder and lead, with no heavy artillery to brag about,” made camp just outside San Antonio. At this stage, the “rebels” lacked any government or a clear list of demands.  While some talked of independence, others only wished for a degree of local autonomy. Stephen Austin, a Virginia-born landowner, led a team to negotiate with General Cos.

When no arrangement could be reached, the general, under pressure from the Mexican government, and with the larger force, felt compelled to act. On an early morning in October, he led a force of around 270 men towards the Mexican camp. A small force of Texans took up a strong position on the banks of the San Antonio River and in just 30 minutes fought off three Mexican assaults, forcing the bigger army back into the town.

‘Who will go with old Ben Milan into San Antonio?’

Nothing had really changed. Cos and his army were still besieged, and the Texans were still too small in numbers to launch an assault on the town. In the Texan camp, boredom was now the greatest danger; men who were volunteers simply slipping away and going back to their farms. This was a pattern that could be expected to worsen as supplies dwindled and winter approached. The Texans were considering decamping and seeking winter billets when a Mexican deserter brought news of the situation in the town. The troop’s morale was low, he reported, and they were running short of both food and water. Colonel Ben Milan offered to lead an attack and, having been given permission to do so, called for volunteers. “Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?” was his famous cry.

After six weeks of siege and five days of house-to-house fighting, General Cos retreated from the town, crossed the bridge over the San Antonio River, and took shelter in the Alamo. When he attempted to launch a counterattack, his cavalry deserted, and Cos sued for peace. The surrender terms were generous, the Mexicans even being allowed to keep their muskets for protection as they marched away.

The Mexican army in Texas had been neutralized, and many Texans now rode home, men such as young Creed Taylor, who arrived at his mother’s log cabin with a new horse, pistols, swords and silk sashes that had once decorated a Mexican officer’s uniform. However, back in Mexico, President Santa Anna had no intention of letting the Texans secede. Transferring his presidential duties to Miguel Barragán, he gathered an army in San Luis Potosí and started the march northwards.

Mexican army on the march

It was a bitterly cold winter, the army lacked supplies, and many of the recruits, who had no military training, had to be given basic instructions on how to use a musket as they marched. There was no money to pay the civilians who worked the supply wagons, so many deserted. The decision to take the inland road, rather than work their way up the coast, meant the army was heading directly towards San Antonio, and as they marched, they met up with Cos and his retreating soldiers, who turned around and joined the column.

By now, Sam Houston was emerging as the leader of the Texan rebels, and aware that a Mexican army was gathering, he sent James Bowie to the Alamo with instructions to remove the artillery and blow up the fortification. Bowie discussed the issue with the Alamo commander, James C. Neill, and on Jan. 26, announced they would stay and defend the fort. There was, at this stage, no certainty that the Mexican army would even reach Texas, and the fort remained undermanned, under-provisioned and generally unprepared. Feb. 21st brought news that Santa Anna and the vanguard of his army had reached the banks of the Medina River, and with the Mexicans just a few days’ march away, San Antonio suddenly became a scene of hectic activity. While many civilians fled the town, the fighting men gathered supplies and herded their cattle into the Alamo. 

Battle of the Alamo

The exact number of men in the mission is uncertain, but it was less than 200, while the Mexicans had around 2,000 troops, with more likely to arrive in the coming days. At 10 p.m. on March 5th, the 12th day of the siege, the Mexican artillery ceased their bombardment, and the exhausted Texans fell into their cots. They were unaware that Mexican soldiers were edging up to the walls to prepare a major assault. The attack came at 5 the following morning. Musket and rifle fire from the walls, and cannons loaded with a jumble of scrap metal, took a toll on the attackers, but a combination of numbers and bravery brought the Mexican infantry into the compound. By 6:30 a.m., the battle was over, and the defenders of the Alamo lay dead. 

Mexico and Texas were now committed to war and a few weeks later, the Battle of San Jacinto would end in Texas independence.

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

The post Remembering the Battle of the Alamo appeared first on Mexico News Daily

This remarkable story was driven by events back in their Spanish homelands.

The early decades of Spanish football

In the 1930s, Spanish football was closing the gap on the established powers of France, Italy and England. The 1934 World Cup saw them beat Brazil and draw with eventual winners Italy before losing a replay. 

Football, a sport still less than 50 years old in Spain by then, was strongest in the Basque Country, that northern area of Spain that centers on the city of Bilbao. Athletic Club in Bilbao won four of the first six Spanish titles, and three other northern teams played in the top division. One explanation put forward for this dominance is that, over the centuries, the region’s isolation had helped breed a people noted for being bigger than the average Spaniard of this era. This was reflected on the football field, where teams had a physical side to their play more associated with the British game. 

While Basque football was thriving, 600 kilometers to the east, Barcelona’s fortunes had faded after the success of the 1920s. The team was struggling in the middle of the table, crowds were down and the club was in financial difficulty. 

The Spanish Civil War and an unexpected offer

Then, in July 1936, Spain was thrown into the turmoil of civil war after an army coup attempted to remove the recently elected government. Led by General Franco and supported by Nazi Germany and the National Fascist Party in Italy, the Nationalists seized the western part of Spain. 

The war had an immediate impact on football. La Liga, Spain’s national soccer league, was suspended, and many players were recruited into one or the other of the opposing armies. In August 1936, Josep Suñol, a local politician and Barcelona club president, was stopped at a road check, where he was murdered by Franco’s soldiers. Isidro Lángara, a hero of football fans in the Basque region, also found himself in trouble, but from the opposite side, the Republicans. He was arrested and imprisoned after being accused of fighting against the miners in the violent strikes of a couple of years before.

Friends rushed to defend him, arguing that as an army conscript, he had been forced to obey orders. His fame as a footballer probably helped, and instead of a prison sentence, he was conscripted into the army.

As the war rolled into 1937, the Nationalist forces pushed northward into the Basque territory and eastward toward Madrid and Barcelona, which were all strong Republican supporters. The war edged Barcelona Football Club closer to bankruptcy. The local regional competitions that continued throughout the war could not draw in big crowds, particularly when people were more likely to spend the afternoon at a political rally than at a football match. 

With the club moving ever closer to collapse, they received an unexpected offer. 

An invitation from Mexico

Manuel Mas Soriano was a Catalan businessman now based in Mexico. Then, as now, Barcelona was a multisport club, and as a youth, Manuel had played for the basketball section. He now offered to sponsor a tour of Mexico by the football team. 

Mexico’s close ties with Spain, the general sympathy of the Mexican population towards the Republican cause — Mexico supported the Republican side and in 1937 began accepting refugees from the Spanish Civil War — and the thousands of Spanish refugees in the country would all help to pack stadiums. Manuel Mas Soriano would cover the initial expenses of the tour and promised the club a fee of $15,000. 

At the start of the summer of 1937, with the war turning in the Nationalists’ favour,  a squad of Barcelona players left for France. Before they crossed the border, their train had to wait in a tunnel for an air raid to pass, but they reached Mexico in early June.

The Spanish Embassy in Mexico City was pro-Republican and welcomed them, but not everybody shared that opinion. The players entered one of the Spanish social clubs to find a National flag flying at the entrance and a hostile reception. Despite these sorts of incidents, the Barcelona tour was nevertheless a great success and was extended to 14 matches, 10 in Mexico and four in the United States. 

The games generated a considerable profit, which was deposited in the safety of a Paris bank. At the end of the war, this money paid off the club’s debts and laid the foundation for the “super club” that would arise in the 1950s.

A new autonomous Basque region builds a new national team

Back in Spain, the fighting had become particularly fierce in the north, where the Basque people were on a double crusade: First, they had no love for the Nationalists, and, second, the war offered an opportunity to achieve the old dream of Basque independence. In October 1936, José Antonio Aguirre was appointed as the first President of Euzkadi, the local name for the Basque homelands. 

As a young man, the new president had played for an Athletic Club team that had won the Spanish Cup, and Aguirre saw the propaganda possibilities that football offered: They would form a Basque national football team to tour Europe, showcasing to the world that the Basque region was now an independent nation. 

From April 1937, Team Euzkadi toured France, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union, which was a major supporter of the Republican war effort. Isidro Lángara was included in the squad, his football skills having saved him again, this time from the front line. With the European tour over, and their Basque homelands about to fall to Nationalist forces, the team boarded a ship in Le Havre and followed Barcelona’s route to Mexico.  

The Basque team played four games against Mexico’s national team, winning three of them, as well as five matches against club sides. In January 1938, they departed for a tour of  South America, beginning in Cuba before heading for Chile and Argentina. By now, a new football federation had been established by the Franco government, and they called for any further matches against Euzkadi to be suspended.

Argentina, finding the Republicans too close to the communist Russians for their liking, duly cancelled the tour in their country.

Where Spain’s players went afterward

The Spanish footballers’ time in Mexico came to an end in September 1937, and the players had to decide what to do. There was a reluctance to return home, where the frontline was now pushing toward Madrid and Barcelona. Some players stayed on in Mexico. The influence of these “exiles” reflected in the top scorers list: Over nine years, Efraín Ruiz,  Miguel Gual, Martí Ventolrá and Isidro Langara (twice) would finish as the highest goal scorer in a Mexican league season.

One of the most remarkable stories was that of Martí Ventolrà, a Barcelona-born, small but powerful winger with an eye for a goal and a sparkle in his smile who had been one of the most famous players in the Barcelona squad, having played for Spain in the 1934 World Cup. 

At a welcome reception upon the Barcelona team’s arrival in Mexico, Ventolrà had noticed a pretty girl, Josefina Rangel Cárdenas. Not put off by the fact that she was the niece of President Lázaro Cárdenas, he had courted her and they were now married. So Martí Ventolrà stayed on in Mexico, playing for the Mexican teams Real Club España and Atlante while he and Josefina raised four children.

Meanwhile, by 1938, the cancellation of the Argentina leg of their tour spelled financial disaster for the Basque team, which had spent all its funds traveling south. In August 1938, the players arrived back in Mexico, where the Basque national football team registered as a club side, Club Deportivo Euzkadi. They would spend the 1938–39 season playing in the Mexican league. 

Club Deportivo Euzkadi in the Mexican League

They started strongly, beating Club América 3-2 and then scoring 7-1 wins over Atlante and Marte. However, Mexican football was still on an amateur level, and as the season went on, several of the best Euzkadi players left to pursue professional careers in Argentina. These included Isidro Lángara, who had already hit 17 goals in the first nine Mexican league games. 

At the end of April 1939, a depleted Euzkadi team met their closest rivals, Asturias, and despite twice taking the lead, could only draw at 3-3. With that, the last chance of the title slipped away, although they finished at a creditable second place. With the end of the season, many of these players joined Real Club España, which would win league titles in 1940 and 1942.

The Spanish Civil War ended in April of 1939, and as Spain settled back into peace, some players took the opportunity to return to Spain, but many still felt a lifelong close affection for Mexico. Euzkadi player Ángel Zubieta, after a long career in Spain and Portugal, returned in 1974 to become manager of the National Autonomous University’s highly successful team, the Pumas. 

A legacy in Mexico

Even more remarkable was the journey of Isidro Langara. In 1943, in anticipation of the creation of a professional league here, he returned to Mexico and signed with Real Club España. In 1946, he finally returned to Spain, where the 34-year-old veteran played for Real Oviedo for two more seasons. After his playing career finally ended, he retired to Mexico, where he became manager of El Club Puebla, taking them to victory in the 1953 Cup competition. 

The last legacy of the “Spanish period” came in 1970, when José Pepe Rangel, one of the sons of Martí Ventolrà and Josefina Rangel Cárdenas, played for Mexico in the 1970 World Cup, making Ventolrá and Rangel the only father and son to ever play in the World Cup for different nations.

Bob Pateman is a historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing. For many years he reported regularly for World Soccer on football around the world.

The post The season Mexico saved FC Barcelona and changed soccer forever appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Yet, Dubois played an important role in Mexican history: It was largely on his poor advice that, in 1862, a tiny French force of 7,000 men marched from Veracruz, intending to occupy Mexico City. It was a campaign that ended in disaster for the French with their famous defeat at the Battle of Puebla — an event still celebrated today in Puebla and marked in other parts of the world with plenty of beers as Cinco de Mayo.

France’s social-climbing diplomat

Jean Pierre Isidore Alphonse Dubois, born in the French town of Saint-Martin-du-Vieux-Bellême in 1809, came from a middle-class family — his father had been a tax inspector. Alphonse Dubois enjoyed neither the rank nor the money to secure a position in the diplomatic service, so he found a rich patron in Prince Ferdinand, the Duke of Orleans. The two men met either in school or on the barricades during the political protests that rocked France in 1830. 

Thanks to the Prince, Dubois was given a diplomatic posting to Greece, followed by a posting to the United States. These were turbulent times on that side of the Atlantic, with Texas having just declared independence from Mexico. In 1839, Dubois visited Texas at a time when it was uncertain if it would remain an independent nation, return to Mexico or secede to the U.S. His reports to the French Foreign Minister were a major influence on his government’s decision to recognize Texas’s independence.

Appointed as the head of the new Texan legation, it was at this point that he started referring to himself as “Dubois de Saligny,” a suggestion of a noble past that did not exist.

The ‘Pig War’ 

Dubois was soon upsetting people, openly siding with Sam Houston in his political battle with Mirabeau Lamar and being seen as too passionate a supporter of the Catholic Church. Then came the “Pig War” in Texas, an event that started as a private quarrel between Dubois and a local hotel owner, Richard Bullock. It seems that Bullock’s pigs had invaded Dubois’s barns, and perhaps even his house. Pigs were killed, servants were beaten and threats were made. 

Implying that any insult to France’s ambassador was an insult to all of France, Dubois demanded that the Texas government punish Bullock. Unfortunately for Dubois, there had been a change in the Texas government, with Mirabeau Lamar now in charge. 

Unable to get satisfaction, Dubois broke diplomatic relations with Texas and deserted his post, basing himself in Louisiana. The news that France was in a dispute with Texas and that their ambassador was absent from his post came as something of a surprise to his political masters in Paris! When Sam Houston’s administration returned to power, it offered Dubois compensation, and the matter was settled. While national pride had forced France to defend its ambassador, the foreign ministry was not happy at being put into such a situation. For the next decade, Dubois was given only occasional and minor postings. 

Dubois in Mexico

Why, then, in 1860, Dubois was recalled to the diplomatic service and sent to Mexico is uncertain. It was intended to be a temporary posting, covering for Comte de Gabriac while he took leave. Having not been popular in his role, the count might have recommended Dubois, believing he was of similar conservative views and the same professional mediocrity.  Once the position had been confirmed, people were anxious to meet with Dubois, men such as an American senator with dreams of building a railway in Mexico. The post was probably proving lucrative long before Dubois sailed for the Americas. 

At the time, a civil war was raging across Mexico between the Liberals, under Benito Juárez, and the Conservatives. The Liberals wanted a President, reform and a reduction of the power of the Catholic church, all policies that appealed to Washington. Since the 1848 annexation of vast areas of northern Mexico, the policy of the European powers had been to block further U.S. expansion in the region. This inclined them towards the  Conservatives, who had the additional appeal of being more open to the idea of establishing a monarchy.  

To general surprise, a few weeks after Dubois’ arrival, the Liberal army entered Mexico City, bringing the war to an end. De Gabriac, who had sided with the Conservatives, was no longer welcome in Mexico, and Dubois, not having been there long enough to upset anybody, stayed on in a permanent role.

Mexico’s debt leads to war

Although the European powers would have preferred a Conservative government in Mexico, this was a domestic issue, and normally, they would not have interfered. However, Benito Juárez inherited a government that owed the European powers a considerable amount of money, both in loans and from silver shipments that had disappeared during the war. With a country in ruins and the Conservatives still capable of reigniting the war from the provinces, Mexico simply could not afford to pay its debts. 

Then, starting in 1861, the U.S. became occupied by its own civil war, and the European governments, lobbied by Mexican Conservative exiles in Paris, sensed an opportunity. In October 1861, the three great European powers — France, Britain and Spain — agreed to take their money back by force, and by the following January, 10,000 European troops had occupied Veracruz. Admiral Jurien de La Gravière was in charge of the French contingent, and he would be guided by the senior French diplomat, the pro-Church, pro-Conservative Dubois.

With the arrival of the European powers in Veracruz, the Mexican authorities retreated from the coast, leaving the invaders to occupy the rundown port town, noted for fevers and vultures. Weeks passed in political stalemate, during which time Dubois once again demonstrated his ability to upset people. The arrival from Paris of the exiled Conservative leader, Juan Almonte, in Mexico was welcomed by the British publication The Spectator in the hope that it would reduce the negative influence of the French ambassador.  

The Battle of Puebla

While Britain and Spain wanted to collect their money and depart, France had greater ambitions, and officials in Paris were probably not upset when Dubois informed them that talks had stalled and that he had cancelled any further negotiations with the Mexican government. The new plan was to have Almonte declared president of Mexico, so it was at this point that a French army of 7,000 men marched toward Mexico City. This was a ridiculously small force for such a task, but Dubois had assured the newly arrived General Charles de Lorencez that the Conservative faction was universally popular and that his soldiers would meet little resistance. 

Instead, the French army arrived at Puebla to find the town manned and fortified. Having neither the time nor numbers for a siege, Lorencez, counting on a professional European army to sweep all before them, attempted to storm the gates. It was a disastrous decision, and his decimated force withdrew to Orizaba. This victory on May 5, 1862, is still celebrated by Mexican communities around the world.

It took four to six weeks for dispatches to reach France, where Napoleon III, presuming things were well in hand, was preparing to absorb Mexico into the French empire.  A struggle now broke out between the defeated general and his political advisor to see who would shoulder the blame: Dubois informed Napoleon that Lorencez was “fearful, lazy, and sluggish” and implied he was drinking too much. Lorencez claimed that he had been misled by  Dubois, who he said was “totally inept in his dealings.” 

The French take Mexico City

It had been a military defeat, and so the general was doomed, while Dubois’ fate hung in the balance. But defeat at Puebla had heightened French resolve, and they were now preparing for a full-out war. This was the decision that would make Prince Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, and eventually bring him in front of a firing squad. With war coming and nobody else on the ground to offer advice, Dubois not only survived the disaster at Puebla but emerged more influential than ever.  

General Élie Frédéric Forey, a veteran of the Crimean War who had arrived to take over the French army in Mexico, was a cautious man, and he led a much larger force, some 28,000 men.  He took Puebla by siege and, although it took a year, entered Mexico City in May 1863. 

Conservatives came out in force to welcome the French, and the march into the city became a carnival of flowers, flags and bands. There was a service in the cathedral and a ball in the National Theatre where rich Conservatives mixed with their French saviors. Nobody seemed to worry that Benito Juárez had not been defeated but had simply withdrawn his forces beyond reach. 

Dubois enjoys the fruits of a momentary victory

A new conservative-leaning government would have to be formed under French supervision.  Almonte, Forey and Dubois all worked towards this, sometimes together, sometimes following their own ambitions, all three anxiously awaiting the letters approving their actions from Napoleon III, far away in France. As one of the men giving out recommendations, Dubois became very rich. The military victory also had to be acknowledged, and he was duly awarded the Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. 

Never a man to handle power well, and possibly drinking heavily, Dubois continued to upset people. One evening, he publicly accused the local chief of police of being little more than a thief and a highwayman. 

In Mexico, Dubois was rich and powerful, and his marriage to María de Ortiz de la Borbolla linked him with the cream of Mexican society. However, he could not be in two places at once, and back in France, his many enemies were whispering into Napoleon’s ear: Why were Dubois and Forey partying in Mexico City and not pursuing the liberal rebels? Was Dubois not corrupt and too close to the Conservatives? How firm was French power in Mexico when it did not seem to stretch beyond the road from the capital to Veracruz? 

Dubois is recalled to France

As Mexico settled into whatever uncertain future it faced, first General Forey, and then Dubois, were recalled. The diplomat was in no rush to leave, but in December 1863, he obeyed the increasingly angry demands from the ministry and sailed for France with his Mexican family. 

There were to be no further postings, and he contented himself with being mayor of the commune, or municipality, of Saint-Martin-du-Vieux-Bellême in northern France. It was here that he died in 1888 at the age of 79, with Mexico’s ill-fated, French-appointed Emperor Maximilian executed in 1867 and France’s empire in Mexico a long-abandoned dream. 

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

The post The despised French diplomat who helped shape Mexican history appeared first on Mexico News Daily

At least with the draw completed, we know, more or less, who Mexico will face in the summer. Will they still be involved when the tournament starts to warm up with the knockout stages?  Well, Mexico should qualify from Group A, particularly given their home advantage, yet there are reasons for concern. They face South Korea, South Africa and a yet-to-be-determined European nation, which will not be known until the European play-offs at the end of March. 

Two rounds of sudden-death games, which could end in penalties, are difficult to predict, but Denmark is the favourite to secure the last place in the group. That should set alarm bells ringing. The Danes were unlucky not to qualify directly for the finals, and were seconds away from doing so when Scotland scored two late goals to snatch the game and take the one automatic place from their European qualifying group. This put the Danes into the play-offs, where they will join North Macedonia, Ireland and the Czech Republic. If it is Denmark that qualifies or, to a lesser extent, the Czech Republic, then World Cup Group A shapes up to be an evenly matched competition with little to choose between the four teams.  

Expectations are mixed for Mexico’s national team

It will certainly test a Mexican team that their own fans have concerns about. This year started well enough for El Tri with coach Javier Aguirre guiding them to two regional trophies, the CONCACAF Nations League Finals and the CONCACAF Gold Cup. While neither tournament caused great ripples on the world stage, they did beat their fellow World Cup hosts: Canada in the Nations League, and the U.S. in the Gold Cup.

With countries wanting to familiarize themselves with the World Cup venues, September brought games against South Korea and Japan, both ending in respectable if unspectacular draws. However, the international weekends in October and November saw a series of poor results against South American opponents, the home crowd even booing Mexico off the pitch after a dull 0-0 draw with Uruguay. The feeling is that this is not a particularly strong Mexican team, and this time around lacks the strong European club players that often add a backbone of experience. Raúl Jiménez is still playing at Fulham, but is now thirty-four, and as his team slides down the Premier League table, there have been murmurs from the fans that the veteran can no longer influence a game. Santiago Gimenez plays for AC Milan and is noted for moments of brilliance and periods of inconstancy. At twenty-four, he needs to make the jump from ‘promising star’ to ‘established star’, and a home World Cup is just the arena to do that.

Previewing the South Africa match

It doesn’t help the Mexican cause that they will play South Africa first. This is probably the weakest of the four teams, and a draw would be disappointing for Mexico. A defeat, with harder teams still to come, would be a disaster. These two sides met in the opening game of the 2010 World Cup, a match which ended in a 1-1 draw and is still remembered for a stunning goal from South Africa’s Siphiwe Tshabalala. Next summer, the roles will be reversed, with Mexico the home side. This gives them the considerable advantage of playing at high altitude in front of  87,000 home fans.

The South African side will be largely made up of home-based players, and that might be a problem for them. At the top level, a few teams, including Mamelodi Sundowns, champions for the last eight seasons, are extremely well organized, and their players enjoy world-class facilities, coaching and care. However, down at the bottom half of the table, a trip to play Magesi F.C. or Marumo Gallants can feel like entering a soccer wilderness.

The league is also noted for arguments and disputes, and this touched the national team. Having easily beaten Lesotho, South Africa faced a protest over the inclusion of Tebo Mokoena, who picked up yellow cards against Benin in November 2023 and Zimbabwe in June 2024. He was banned for the next game, something the South African officials overlooked during the long intervening period. As a result, South Africa had three points deducted and went into the final round of games with qualification on a knife-edge. The South Africans won at home, and Benin, ahead of them going into that last day, lost to Nigeria, a combination of results that saved South Africa the embarrassment of elimination.

South Africa’s coach and top players

Unusually for an African team, the South Africans have stayed with one coach. Hugo Broos had a long career as a player in his native Belgium, including playing for his country in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. By the 1990s, he was the up-and-coming manager in Belgian soccer, having taken Club Brugge to two championships. The national team position at the time was securely in the hands of the legendary Paul van Himst, so Hugo took his trade to Anderlecht and, from 2008, worked overseas. After he led South Africa to a third-place finish at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, several sides had their eye on him, but South Africa retained his services to see them through to the 2026 World Cup.

The best-known South African player is captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Hayden Williams. An international since March 2014, he has won numerous African awards. The team will have several young players, and much will depend on whether the likes of Tylon Smith can step up to the occasion. Smith was voted Player of the Tournament at the 2025 Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations and plays for Queens Park Rangers in the second level of English football. South Africa has never lacked talent, but this World Cup might have come a little early for the next generation of stars.

Matching up with South Korea’s talented roster

For their second game, Mexico will relocate to Guadalajara, where they face South Korea. Unlike the South Africans, South Korea will have a core of players who will bring experience from the world’s top leagues. Lee Kang-in, an attacking midfielder or winger, is on the books of Paris Saint-Germain, and Kim Min-jae plays center back for Bayern Munich. The key player is captain Son Heung-min. A Premier League legend after ten seasons and 127 goals with Tottenham, he is now plying his trade in the U.S. with Los Angeles FC. Son is a fit and dedicated young man, but a player who depends so much on speed might struggle at 33. We wait and see. If Son Heung-min still has his magic, he will shine in what must surely be his last major tournament, and that should take Korea through to the final stages.

Denmark shapes up as the toughest test among potential European qualifiers

Mexico’s third game on June 25, 2026, will be against the European qualifiers. If that proves to be Denmark, then that will make a tough finish to the group. The Danes have several players who earn their wages at top European clubs but have yet to make their name there. Center forward Rasmus Højlund is a prime example. He showed so much promise that Manchester United signed him for £64 million. He played well in patches, but a striker has a clear task: he is there to score goals, and Højlund did not find the net with any regularity. As a result, this season has seen him loaned to Naples. Højlund has sometimes found it easier to score for Denmark than for his club, and a chance to play on the world stage might revive his career. 

The Czech Republic has a solid team with a core of players from the German league. They finished second in their group, well behind Croatia, and suffered an embarrassing 1-2 defeat to the Faroe Islands. However, once the World Cup starts, teams tend to make their own form, and this would also be a tough game for Mexico. Ireland, with its collection of players mostly involved in the English Championship League, or North Macedonia, would be far easier opponents for Mexico.

So, an even group, with South Korea and Denmark (if they qualify), in the best form as we approach the run-up to the tournament. If Mexico wins the opener against South Africa and gets the fans behind them, they should go through. If they start badly and the fans turn against them, there might be problems.

What if Mexico advances beyond the group stage?

The next stage, like everything else in this competition, seems to have been over-managed, as FIFA tries to set up the big four — Spain, Argentina, France and England  — for the semi-final positions. Winning Group A would mean Mexico facing a third-place team in the round of 32. Finishing as runners-up would pair them against the runners-up from Group B. That creates a lot of guesswork, particularly as one of the four sides in Group B is still unknown. However, a likely possibility could be facing Italy or Switzerland, something Mexico would want to avoid at that early stage. A third-place finish would not automatically guarantee a place in the knockout stage, but teams qualifying through a third-place spot would face a group winner. All we can do now is wait for the big kick-off!

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

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Columbus indeed found land on the far side of the Atlantic, and he returned in 1493. This time, he established a settlement on the island of Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic), creating a small foothold in a new world that still required exploration and mapping. It was, for example, uncertain if neighbouring Cuba was an island or, as Columbus believed, the most easterly point of mainland Asia. This would not be settled until 1508, when Sebastián de Ocampo finally circumnavigated the island.  

The final voyage of Columbus

In 1502, Christopher Columbus’ fourth and final voyage brought him to the American mainland, and he sailed as far north as modern Belize. On July 30, 1502, his party spotted a large canoe approaching from the west. The canoe was carved from one large tree trunk and was powered by 25 nude rowers. As far as we can tell from the limited accounts, this was a Maya trading canoe from the Yucatán, carrying a cargo of trading goods that included ceramics, cotton, copper, and stone axes, war clubs and cacao. It was not a friendly first interaction. The Europeans looted whatever took their interest from the cargo and seized the elderly Maya captain to serve as their guide.

It had been a difficult trip, noted for unhelpful winds and currents, shallow reefs and sudden storms, and it ended with the crew being marooned on Jamaica for several months. Columbus had not rounded the eastern point of the Yucatán. Had he done so, he would have been the first European to see the great Maya cities. He had, however, seen enough to convince himself that they had been sailing along the shores of a continent, and one that was home to people far more technically advanced than the small villages encountered on the Caribbean islands. Columbus was more certain than ever that he had reached the eastern shores of Asia.

Spanish advances in the Americas

In 1510, the Spaniards made their first attempt to establish a settlement on the South American mainland, founding the colony of Santa María la Antigua del Darién in Colombia. The following year, a ship sailing out of this colony hit a sandbar off the coast of Jamaica.  Most of the crew and passengers took to a small boat, but unable to combat the current and wind, they were swept westwards to the Yucatán and captured by the Maya. Somehow, two of them, a friar called Jerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero, who was probably a sailor, escaped into the jungle.

In 1511, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar arrived in Cuba with instructions to bring the island more firmly under Spanish rule. The island proved far more welcoming to the Spanish than Hispaniola had been. The Indigenous Taínos, Ciboneys and the Guanajatabeyes, having generally been left alone by neighbouring islanders, had neither weapons nor a warlike culture. The forests and beaches provided sources of food, such as cassava, large lizards, turtles and wild birds, that offered a more varied and therefore healthier diet. Although the rumours of gold were greatly exaggerated, the Spanish brought in settlers to populate the small towns that Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar established around the island.

The Spanish settlement of Havana

One of these new settlements was Havana. Built around a natural bay, it lay to the north of the island at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. This gave easy access to the Gulf Stream, the main ocean current that navigators followed when returning to Europe, so it rapidly developed as an important port. By 1515, Cuba was largely pacified and already becoming the heart of Spanish interest in the Americas. 

The first years of Spanish exploration and settlement had not produced any significant quantities of gold. Neither had ships been able to discover a trade route to Asia. Instead, it was plantations, particularly the growing of sugar and tobacco, that were proving the most profitable business. However, plantations were dependent on enslaved labor, and the Spaniards had brought new diseases with them, which had decimated the local Indigenous populations. Exploring the still uncharted lands to the west was increasingly motivated by the search for more people to enslave, and while ships leaving from Hispaniola had tended to head towards South America, the ever more important harbour of Havana was far closer to the Yucatán. The Spanish were about to turn their attention to Mexico.

The first Spanish voyages to Mexico

Around 1515, or perhaps the following year, the Maya were hit by a great plague. The sickness caused large, rotting pustules and is thought likely to have been smallpox. Whether it was carried by those handful of shipwrecked prisoners or brought overland by Indigenous peoples trading with the Spanish settlement in Panama is uncertain. Whatever the source, this was the Maya’s first experience of the European diseases that would take such a terrible toll in the years ahead.

In February 1517, 25 years after Columbus first sailed to the Americas, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba set out from Cuba with a small fleet of three ships. Little is known of Córdoba’s life before this. He had been born in Spain, had acquired land and wealth in Cuba, and was sailing in search of gold and people to enslave. These waters were stormy and dangerous, but at least the  Spaniards now had some knowledge of what to expect. Antón de Alaminos, who had served as pilot under Christopher Columbus, was sailing with Córdoba, and three weeks after leaving Cuba, having survived a two-day storm, they sighted the northeastern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula. Here they saw a Maya city upon a low hill, which they called Gran Cairo, due to its size and its pyramids.  As far as can be ascertained, they had reached Isla Mujeres. 

Córdoba’s explorations of the Yucatán Peninsula

The initial reaction of the Maya was aggressive, and a Spanish party that went ashore at Chakán Putum was ambushed by a large group of warriors. Several Spaniards were killed, and others were wounded during the attack. However, the Spanish were able to continue into the city, reaching a small plaza, where they looted the temples.

They also captured two Mayas to be used as guides. One man injured in the attack was the future historian Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who returned to the ship with three wounds. One of these, an arrow that had pierced his ribs, was quite serious, but he survived. Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s story is typical of a Spanish adventurer of this age. Born in Spain to a modestly wealthy family, he had schooling and a talent for languages but few prospects. As a young man, he had sailed for the new colonies, but here, too, there seemed to be limited opportunities for the later arrivals. He turned to soldiering, sailing first with Córdoba and later with Hernán Cortés. Many years later, he would write an account of these events in “Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España.”

Over the next fifteen days, Córdoba’s fleet slowly followed the coastline west and then south, but they were running into problems. The poor quality Cuban water casks were leaking, and the need to find fresh water became critical. Another problem was that the Maya stone arrows tended to shatter on impact, and some of the wounds that had seemed minor were now becoming infected. Córdoba headed north for Florida, where they were again attacked, at which point the expedition was abandoned and they headed back for Cuba.

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar’s fleet arrives in the Yucatán

The following year, spurred in part by the gold Córdoba had looted from the temple at Chakán Putum, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar assembled a fleet of four ships and placed it under the command of Juan de Grijalva. They departed Cuba in April with Antón de Alaminos, now a veteran of these waters, once again the pilot. They also carried the two Indigenous peoples captured at Chakán Putum. These men had been given Spanish names, being known as Julianillo and Melchorejo, and presumably had learnt a fair bit of Spanish. They would act as both guides and interpreters. 

The fleet rounded Cuba and reached the east coast of the Yucatán, where they became the first Europeans to see Cozumel. Turning north and following the coastline, they reached Chakán Putum. where they were again attacked. A few crew members were killed, and many, including the captain, were injured. They were attacked again at San Juan de Ulúa, this time by Indigenous people in canoes. Maya aggression prevented de Grijalva from establishing a small garrison and claiming these lands for Spain.

In other places, they were able to trade, acquiring some jewellery and “low-grade” gold items. One ship returned to Cuba to seek reinforcements, and the rest pushed on. They reached Tabasco, where they named the local river the Río Grijalva after their captain. It was around this time that they became the first Spaniards to encounter the Mexica, coming across a man called Pinotl, a representative of the great Moctezuma II. The Spaniards heard of a great inland city, while Pintol returned to Tenochtitlán with news of these strange foreigners, men with beards who sailed the seas in their great white ships.  

Cortés comes to Mexico

On their return, the rumors of gold once again spurred excitement, and Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar selected Hernán Cortés to lead the next expedition. A decade of soldiering in the New World had seen Cortés grow rich in land and government positions, and he gathered a force of 11 ships, 500 men, as well as 13 horses. Backed by such an army, Cortés could be far more aggressive with the local Yucatán chieftains.

While on Cozumel, a canoe arrived with three men, one of whom rushed up to the sailors and asked in Spanish who they were and who their king was. This was Jerónimo de Aguilar, one of the last two survivors from the lifeboat the tides had swept here in 1510. Gonzalo Guerrero had also survived but had assimilated into Maya life and now had tattoos, piercings, a wife and several children. He would stay in the service of his Maya lord. Jerónimo de Aguilar, however, being a religious man, had rejected such temptations and sailed with Cortés as he departed for the north and his conquest of the great Mexica empire.

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

The post Between Columbus and Cortés — How Spain encountered Mexico appeared first on Mexico News Daily

These three types of sightings would get any ornithologist into the history books: 

1. Sighting a species previously unknown to science. Even in our modern world, there might still be small, isolated populations of a never-before documented bird species in some thick mountain forest or on a remote island. A good example is the Banda Myzomela (Myzomela boiei), a small, beautiful bird with a bright-red head found across Indonesia’s Banda Islands, discovered in 2025 to consist of three separate species. 
2. Finding the fossil of a previously undiscovered bird species. The existence, for example, of the Baminornis zhenghensis — a pigeon-sized bird from the Jurassic Period —  was discovered only this year. It might change our whole understanding of bird evolution.
3. Bringing a bird back from the dead. This means spotting a bird previously thought by science to be extinct. This does very occasionally happen: The night parrot, a brilliantly colored nocturnal bird once common in Australia, was until recently believed extinct — a victim of humans and the feral, predatory animals that hitched a ride with them. The bird’s existence was confirmed, however, in 2013 — after 23 years without a sighting — when a ranger discovered a night parrot egg.

A sighting of Mexico’s imperial woodpecker — which hasn’t been provably documented since 1956 — would fall into this third category.

The imperial woodpecker: A tragic tale of human-driven extinction? 

The imperial was — and hopefully still is — a remarkable bird,  bright-red and black, and the biggest of all the 241 species of woodpeckers found worldwide. 

It is officially listed as “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” by both the IUCN and BirdLife International because there has not been a confirmed sighting of the imperial woodpecker since 1956, and the weight of evidence edges towards extinction. The story of this bird’s discovery — and its demise — is both a fascinating and tragic tale.

The imperial woodpecker was once widespread throughout the Sierra Madre Occidental, that mountain range that runs through much of northern and central Mexico. It fed on the forest region’s insect larvae, which it found under the bark of dead pine trees. 

A healthy forest has only a few dead and rotting trees at any one time, so specialist eaters such as the woodpeckers require a large area to search for food. As a result, the imperial woodpecker population was never numerous, and, even in happier times, its mountain home probably only supported a few thousand individuals. 

The imperial woodpecker’s discovery

Although obviously known to locals, the bird didn’t come to academic attention until 1832, when John Gould presented some dead specimens to the Zoological Society of London. He had not collected these himself and was vague about where they originated, believing them to come from somewhere near Southern California, and details about the woodpecker species would remain a mystery for several more decades. It was 1892 before Edward Nelson and his young assistant, Edward Goldman, became the first outsiders to see living examples. 

Unusually for woodpeckers, the imperial species was often reported flying in small flocks — most likely because they tended to gather on the same dead trees to feed. This fact made them vulnerable to hunters, as the Edwards showed by dropping several out of the sky with a single shotgun blast. Adding to their vulnerability was the fact that — despite being hunted for their plumage, for medical properties and sometimes just because their loud noise upset people — the birds weren’t scared of humans. 

In the first half of the 20th century, as loggers opened more paths in the region, more guns arrived in the villages, and the imperial woodpecker’s numbers declined. When ornithologist Arthur Allen and his wife hiked through these forests in 1946, they only found a solitary female. William Rhein, a dentist by trade and a bird-watcher by passion, made three expeditions into the region in the 1950s and saw only a few. The region was still a wild and at times dangerous area, and foreign visitors remained rare. When James Tanner and his son came to Durango in 1964, they sought a bird not spotted by an outsider for a decade.

Tanner was a woodpecker expert who earned his PhD studying the ivory woodpecker in the United States. He interviewed locals — who knew of the bird by its Mexican name, pitoreal — but even they had not seen one for four or five years. Villagers, however, did know of a remote area they said might still be untouched. 

Despite warnings that bandits made the area dangerous, the Tanners employed a local guide and headed there, but there was no sign of the elusive bird. Tanner did collect new information about the species, however, noting that the young nestlings were considered a local delicacy — probably another reason for their dwindling numbers. 

While the ivory woodpecker had suffered primarily from the loss of habitat in the U.S, Tanner noted that, by contrast, forests of the Sierra Madre had not yet been stripped bare. He believed that hunting had taken a higher toll on the imperial woodpecker than had habitat loss.

A renewed search 

A handful of unconfirmed sightings continued between 1965 and 1995, but nothing definitive enough to convince scientists that the imperial woodpecker was still alive. Then, in 1995, Dutch woodpecker expert Maurits Lammertink was in Cornell University’s archives going through old letters exchanged between Tanner and Rhein. In these letters, he found reference to filmed footage of the bird. 

Lammertink visited Rhein in Pennsylvania and viewed the footage shot by Rhein in 1956. A few seconds of the grainy film included distant but clear views of the imperial woodpecker, presenting new information on the bird’s flight pattern: It had, for example, a fast wing flap rate compared to other woodpeckers. Lammertink also documented information on the bird’s favorite perches.  

The footage inspired Lammertink to enter Sierra Madre Occidental in 2010 with wildlife photographer and author Tim Gallagher. Gallagher had become a birding legend in 2004 by documenting an ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas — a living example of the species had not been seen in the U.S. since 1944. Lammertink and Gallagher retraced Rhein’s route through the Sierra Madre Occidental, heading for the area where Rhein had shot his footage.  

Back in the 1950s, this region still consisted of old-growth forest with abundant large and dead trees. Since then, the area had been regularly logged, and locals told the pair that logging firms in the 1950s had encouraged rampant poisoning of woodpeckers. Despite Lammertink and Gallagher’s best efforts — which included trying to attract birds with a small device that mimicked the characteristic double-knock drum of many woodpeckers — no imperials were spotted, and the interviews of locals suggested that the bird had become extinct around 1960.

Could the imperial woodpecker still be alive?

It seems unlikely — but it’s not impossible — that this bird still survives in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental. While it hasn’t been provably sighted since 1956, the area today is a center of the criminal drug trade, so scientists and ornithologists seldom venture there. As Gallagher wrote, “Why would anyone go looking in such a terrifyingly dangerous place for a bird that might not even exist?”

While logging in Mexico continues to take its toll on the region’s forests, it is possible that enough patches of old forest survive today to form a last refuge for the imperial — or that the birds have been able to adapt to life in a secondary growth habitat. But while rediscovering an extinct bird might bring headlines, it doesn’t guarantee a happy ending: When a bird is spotted after such a long gap, it generally means that too few have survived to maintain a breeding population. 

Even if a living example is found one day, it is probably too late at this point to save the imperial woodpecker. But Mexico has nearly 100 other endemic birds considered endangered. Perhaps there is still time to learn from the imperial woodpecker’s story — and to spare other Mexican species from a similar fate.

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

The post The hunt for Mexico’s rarest bird — that might not even exist appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Sara came from a wealthy family that had investments in the southern U.S. cotton industry. In the early 1840s, her parents moved to Paris, and Sara was born there in 1847.  When her parents relocated back to the U.S., ten-year-old Sara stayed in France, where she attended boarding school. She was placed under the guardianship of M. Achille Jubinal and his wife, from whom she gained her interest in antiques and archaeology. In 1862, her parents moved once again, this time settling in Mexico City. When her brother was killed by bandits, they decided it was time to reunite the family, and Sara was instructed to pack her bags and head for Mexico. 

The Second French Intervention in Mexico

The previous year, France had landed a military force at Veracruz, in a heavy-handed attempt to force the new Liberal government into paying its outstanding foreign debts. There was great excitement in France at this event, believing they were witnessing the start of a golden period during which French expertise would open mines, expand the telegraph service and build railroads. This would all be to the benefit of the Mexicans and to the profit of Paris. Indeed, Sara’s journey to Mexico would be on the maiden voyage of a new steamship service, the first to directly link France with Mexico. Sara was a little chilled to find that two of the young passengers were surgeons, sent out to increase the staff at the military hospital. This was the first indication that the Mexican adventure was coming at a cost.

After stops in Cuba and Martinique, Sara had her first glimpse of Mexico on May 2, 1862. “A dark, broadening line upon the horizon, behind which soon loomed up in solitary dignity the snow-capped peak of Orizaba.” Like most visitors to Veracruz, she commented on the heat and the vultures. These large, black birds were the town’s only refuse collectors, and as such were protected. This had allowed their numbers to increase to the point where they covered the flat roofs and steeples of the town. While they waited for permission from the health officer to land, passengers received news that the military force of  General Charles de Lorencez had been forced back at Puebla.

Her arrival in Mexico City

The defeat of a European army was a shock, and it meant that the road to Mexico City was now closed to foreigners. Travelers would have to risk the longer and bandit-infested route via Xalapa. This required employing an escort of bandits who, having taken the travelers into their care, could negotiate safe passage with any other ruffians the party might encounter. Sara and a small group of fellow travelers found a bandit captain recommended by friends, a man whose credentials included an impressive saber scar on his face.

Their guide proved trustworthy, and after nine days they reached the crest of a mountain, from which they looked down on the valley of Mexico and the capital. Sara described the view: “With its two hundred thousand souls, its picturesque buildings, and the lakes of Chalco and Tezcuco, while to one side the huge snow-capped volcanoes, the Iztaccihuatl and the Popocatépetl, like two gigantic sentries, seemed to watch over the sacredness of this classical spot of Mexican history.”

After the excitement of the journey, Mexico City seemed quite peaceful, and the new arrivals were wined and dined by the small expatriate community. Many upper-class Mexicans mixed freely with the foreigners, and Sara noted the happy mood of the Liberal supporters, as if victory at Puebla had ended the danger of French intervention. “Society danced and flirted, rode in the Paseo, and walked in the Alameda,” she later recalled. There were amateur bullfights in the Plaza de Toros, where rich young aristocrats put on a show with far more heraldry than the rather grabby professional circuses of the time. 

There was also a dark side to Mexico in 1862. Bands of outlaws roamed the countryside, and the stage coaches that linked the capital with the provinces were regularly robbed. Neither was the city itself safe from violence. “No man, in those days, ventured out of an evening to pay a call without being well armed.” The secretary of the Prussian legation, a man who apparently had the knack of making enemies, had been badly injured in one attack. Kidnapping was common and particularly feared, the mistreatment of victims being legendary. 

The French army takes Mexico City

As Sara settled into her new home, the French government set about avenging the defeat at Puebla, with the advance guard of General Forey’s army entering the capital on June 10, 1863. That morning, Sara went onto the balcony to see the unexpected sight of a group of senior officers in the street below. “As we appeared at the balcony, there was a perceptible flutter among them, and some of them began to ogle us as only Frenchmen could, whose eyes had not rested upon a white woman for several months.” The French administration returned the Conservatives to power, a move that pleased many people. Short of money, the Liberal government had been exhorting the rich for loans and seizing boys from the slums for the army ranks. After years of civil war, the French intervention seemed to promise stability and peace.

Sarah was aware that problems remained, noting that while the liberal forces might have been forced from Mexico City, they had not been defeated, and the countryside remained as lawless as ever. Stage coaches were regularly attacked, and in an incident that shocked the community, highwaymen tore up the rails of the Paso del Macho Railroad and kidnapped several of the passengers for ransom. When young officers offered to take Sara and her friends on a picnic by the ruins of an old Spanish aqueduct, it was deemed wise to take an additional guard of soldiers, this just 20 kilometers from the city.

Emperor Maximilian’s Mexico

Under French “guidance,” the new Conservative government accepted an Austrian archduke, Ferdinand Maximilian, as Emperor of the Second Mexican Empire. Sara witnessed the royal couple’s arrival in the city, a parade not equaled since the days of the Mexica. “Triumphal arches of verdure, draped with flags and patriotic devices, were raised along the principal avenues leading to the Plaza Mayor and to the palace. As far as the eye could reach, the festively decked windows, the streets, and the flat roofs of the houses were crowded with people eager to catch a glimpse of the new sovereigns.”

It was an optimistic time for some. The royal court glittered, trade boomed, customs duties increased, and loans were given freely. An Anglo-French company won the concession to build a railway linking Veracruz to Mexico City, a project they promised would be completed in five years. With the center of the country subdued by the French army, the Emperor started a tour of the provinces. Sara, however, was becoming less optimistic about the future. The abundance of money, she wrote, “dazzled the people, and a golden dust was thrown into the eyes of all, which for a brief period prevented them from seeing the true drift of political events.” Indeed, despite the young emperors’ good intentions, the imperial experiment would be short-lived and would end in bloodshed and disaster. 

Final glimpses 

By 1866, the French government was losing its appetite for a war that had dragged on for nearly five years. While not unexpected, the announcement in December that the French army would be called home sent shock waves through the foreign community. “One heard of little else than of the safest and most comfortable way of getting down to the coast,” Sara wrote. The Stevenson family was one of the first to leave, and Sara’s last night in Mexico City was spent taking supper at a friend’s house. Then, at 3 a.m., the family was escorted to the stagecoach. “The gloom of that early start in the darkness of the morning! The dreariness of everyone’s attempt at cheerfulness! And then the approaching noise of the mules.”

At least with the French army in retreat, the road was safer than usual, and after the first day of hard traveling, the stagecoach rested in the safety of a military camp. Here, Sara caught a glimpse of one of the great characters of this adventure, Princess Salm-Salm, “in her gray-and-silver uniform, sitting her horse like a female centaur — truly a picturesque figure, with her white couvre-nuque glistening under the tropical sun.” In Veracruz, it was life as normal, and Sara and her family were invited to breakfast by the commander and entertained on board the flagship of Admiral Cloue. All talk now was of the Emperor and whether, as everybody expected, he too would shortly flee the country. 

From Mexico to Egyptology

And so the Stevenson family returned to the United States. Most of their money had been invested in Mexico, and her father, who was already ill, never recovered from the loss. He died soon afterwards. Sara, still only twenty, made a living as a music and dance teacher, married an attorney, and entered into Philadelphia’s social life. Building on the love of archaeology she had first acquired in Paris, she enjoyed a distinguished career as an Egyptologist. She would become the first woman to lecture at the Peabody Museum and the first woman to receive an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Her account of the Second Mexican Empire, “Maximilian in Mexico: A Woman’s Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867,” was published in 1899.

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

The post 19th century Mexico through the eyes of an American aristocrat appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The story of the World Cup really starts not with that 1930 tournament, but thirty years before with the Olympics. The first Olympic soccer tournament was a modest affair, staged in 1900 with just three club sides representing France, Belgium and Great Britain. The tournament slowly expanded, and while athletics generally was the star attraction of the Olympics, by the 1920s, it was the soccer tournament that was bringing in the most gate money.

Mexican football in the early 20th century

Mexican football during the 1920s centered on the Campeonato de Primera Fuerza de la Federación Mexicana de Futbol, which consisted of just nine Mexico City-based teams. It was all very amateurish, with only a couple of hundred men taking the game seriously, and the big sport clubs, with their “members only” teams, were still influential. Grounds were small, with a few hundred spectators attending the biggest games. Football was a close-knit community, and the young men who played each other on the weekend met in committees during the week, and many socialized in the clubs. The most influential of these pioneers was Rafael Garza Gutiérrez, a man who was a natural leader thanks to both his family status — they were founders of Club América — and his notable physical size. He had been Club América’s player-manager since 1917 and was still playing, although now in his thirties.

The winners of the Mexico City-based league were listed as champions of Mexico,  but there were similar competitions around the country, most notably in Veracruz and Guadalajara. However, in the 1920s, it was the capital that beat at the very heart of Mexican football, and the violence of the Cristero War, which was raging across central Mexico, added to this isolation. Indeed, one of the great pioneer clubs from the countryside, Pachuca FC, had recently folded as so many of its players had fled the mining city. 

The Mexico City clubs had put out a combined “Mexican” team in 1923 to play visitors from Guatemala, and there had been occasional exhibition games involving a Mexican “selection” since then. The turning point came in 1927 when Club América played Real Madrid in New York. This fed the appetite for international football and focused attention on the need to upgrade the organization from an ad hoc collection of club officials getting together to arrange the occasional game to an elected and recognized governing body. The result was the formation of the Mexican Football Federation in 1928.

The Olympics of 1928

Later that year, Mexico was one of 16 teams that gathered in Amsterdam for the Olympics. Football in Mexico was still played by amateurs, and selection for the team was as dependent on a man’s financial position as his skill on the pitch. Any players selected would have to be able to afford to take up to 6 weeks off work. As a result, the young men who sailed to Europe were either comfortably wealthy or had understanding employers. Goalkeeper Óscar Bonfiglio, for example, was an army officer and had the support of the military. Mexico’s Olympic participation lasted just 90 minutes, and they went out after losing 7-1 to Spain. However, they had planned a prolonged post-Olympic tour, travelling through Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium for the next six weeks and playing club sides such as Feyenoord, Cologne and Zurich.

It was at the FIFA Congress, staged before the Olympics, that the decision was taken to organize the first World Cup tournament. FIFA wanted to echo the financial success of the Olympic football tournament, and at the same time saw the need for a true World Championship, which, unlike the Olympics, would be open to the growing number of professional players. Several nations came forward to organise the event, but one by one they dropped out, leaving only Uruguay. The South American economy was holding up well, there was immense pride in their football team, which had won the last two Olympic titles, and 1930 would see the country celebrate 100 years of independence. It seemed perfect timing, and plans were immediately laid down to build a gigantic concert stadium to host the event. 

The first World Cup

There would of course be problems. Passage would be by sea, meaning players would be away for at least six weeks. This would not clash with the European season, but it would take players away from their families and interrupt the traditional summer rest period. The February deadline for entering came and went with no European sides committed. Political pressure was applied, and France, Belgium, Romania and Yugoslavia agreed to send teams, but the target of sixteen sides was not reached. In addition, Egypt had entered but was delayed by a storm in the Mediterranean and literary “missed the boat” that was to bring them on to South America.

When the World Cup invitation had first been received in Mexico, Juan José Luqué de Serrallonga had been invited to coach the team. He was a Spaniard who had moved to Mexico in 1928. Back in Spain, he had played for his local side Cádiz CF, where he had been a useful goalkeeper, and he was now coaching in the Mexico City league. On May 25, 1930, Serrallonga invited the best players in Mexico City to play an exhibition game to help select the World Cup team. Of the 17 players selected for the squad, five were from Club América and seven from Atlante. Five of the 1928 Olympic team retained their place, and there were also two sets of brothers, Manuel and Felipe Rosas and Francisco and Rafael Gutiérrez. Then, as now, fans and the press had their own strong ideas.

The appointment of Luque de Serrallonga was particularly criticized. There was a belief that the position should have gone to a Mexican, while El Universal suggested that, after average performances coaching Real España and Germania, he ”lacked the merits” to hold such a position. A thoughtful journalist at El Universal questioned the policy of limiting selection to players from Mexico City, and fans at the final warmup games called out the names of players they wanted added to the squad, most notably América’s Luis Cerrilla.

The journey to Uruguay

The team had to take a roundabout route to Uruguay, first travelling to New York, where, on the evening of June 13, they and the US team boarded the S.S. Munargo. It was an 18-day trip to Montevideo with stops in Bermuda and Brazil, and training on board was difficult, “an open deck for exercising,” and “very poor bathrooms,” as the US team explained to the press.

Mexico had been drawn in Group 1, the only group to have 4 teams, and they would be facing Argentina, one of the favourites for the trophy. Workmen were still rushing to finish the Estadio Centenario, so on July 13, Mexico and France faced each other in the modest  Estadio Pocitos. Playing in dark maroon shirts, Mexico showed naivety in defence, crowding their penalty area without tightly marking the opposing forwards. In the 19th minute, the ball came in from the right, and there was Lucien Laurent, standing unmarked, to score the first-ever goal in the World Cup. In the 26th minute, the French goalkeeper fell to the feet of Mejia and had to go off injured. Down to ten men, and with a defender now in goal, France still raced to a comfortable 3-0 halftime lead. In the 70th minute, Juan Carreño, who had scored Mexico’s first goal in the Olympics, scored their first goal in the World Cup, but France ran out 4-1 winners. Mexico’s second game was against Chile, and once again, Mexico lost. The final score was 0-3 with Manuel Rosa unlucky to have the ball hit him and bounce into the net for the first own goal of the tournament.  

Mexico game in a losing effort against Argentina

On July 19, Mexico played its third match in a very different atmosphere. The new stadium was ready and the heaving bowl was packed with 42,000 fans, the majority having caught the ferry from Buenos Aires to support Argentina. Argentina were 3-0 up after 17 minutes, and Bonfiglio in the Mexican goal had saved a penalty. That incident became a football legend. There are accounts that Fernando Paternoster, disagreeing with the referee’s decision to award the kick, had deliberately hit the ball into the goalkeeper’s arms, or that the penalty spot had not been marked on the pitch, and the inexperienced referee had paced out too many steps. Just before half-time, Mexico also won a penalty. Manuel Rosa, he of the earlier own goal, stepped forward to hit it into the net. Rosa was only 18 years old and would hold the record as the youngest goalscorer in the FIFA World Cup until Pelé arrived on the scene 28 years later. 

The goals continued: 4-1, then 5-1, before Mexico was awarded a second penalty, the third of the game. This time, goalkeeper Ángel Bossio got a hand to the ball, but it fell back to Rosa, who scored his second goal. When Roberto Gayón made it 5-3, it looked for a moment as if Mexico might actually perform a football miracle. But Argentina put the game beyond reach with their sixth goal. Mexico would come home without taking a point from their three games. Even so, they had come out of the tournament with honor, particularly in this last game. “Mexico Plays Well in Montevideo,” was the headline in El Universal.

The players of 1930 have long ago slipped out of the public spotlight. Dionisio Mejía later became the key striker in the team, scoring 7 goals in the 1934 qualifying campaign. Alfredo Sánchez was still playing for Mexico at the 1938 Central American and Caribbean Games, and Juan Carreño, the scorer of Mexico’s first goals in both Olympics and World Cup, was the league’s joint top scorer when Atlante won the title in 1932. He died of appendicitis aged just 31. Goalkeeper Óscar Bonfiglio went on to have a distinguished army career, and Rafael Garza Gutiérrez continued to be involved with Club América for another twenty years.  The boys of 1930 made up a unique group of colleagues and friends. They would be the last Mexicans to play in the World Cup until 1950.

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.

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Little evidence survives from this long period, so it remains poorly understood. Even the question of when humans arrived on the continent cannot be answered with any certainty. For a long time, the vision was of small family groups following herds of wild animals across a frozen landscape, surviving in a cold, harsh world, thanks to a technology that was largely limited to fire and a few stone tools. For much of the last century, history books confidently dated this event to around 12,000 years ago. 

Rewriting the early history of Mexico

However, few historians still believe that date is accurate, or that the story is so simple. 

The argument is now edging towards two, three or even several waves of migration, the earliest of which might have occurred around 30,000 years ago. There is also an acceptance — almost an expectation — that future archaeological discoveries will push that date back further and reveal the story to be even more complex. 

Dating when the first humans arrived in America also determines how they got here. Between 29,000 to 19,000 years ago, glaciers reached their maximum expansion, covering much of North America. If humans arrived during this time, then the vision of them following herds southwards seems unlikely. Instead, we have to imagine the pioneers working their way down the coast in small boats or rafts. 

Whenever they came, or however they traveled, humans arrived in very small numbers, and evidence of their passage — such as stone tools lost or cast aside or the remnants of campfires in the mouth of caves — has proved elusive to find and difficult to date.  With our knowledge resting on such little evidence, each new find has tended to challenge, rather than support, the standard version of the story. 

Stone tools in the Chiquihuite cave

As recently as  2012, the discovery of thousands of stone tools at the Chiquihuite cave in Zacatecas state suggests that the date for human arrival in Mexico should be pushed back as far as 26,500 years ago. This would, in turn, make us reconsider the date of the first human arrival in the Americas, supporting the possibility that this occurred before the glaciers gripped the north of the continent. 

It must be pointed out that, as exciting as the finds at Chiquihuite cave have been, they have been disputed. It has been questioned, for example, whether the stones are really man-made tools or formed naturally. And why does a site that would have been visited for 10,000 years show no sign of human fires?

Nevertheless, while the evidence is still thin, archaeological digs, such as the one continuing to take place at Chiquihuite, do give us some idea of how people lived during this long, little-understood period. 

The oldest sites in Mexico

Evidence for the first human arrivals in what is now modern Mexico has been identified from the Baja California peninsula, where there were large lakes at the time, to Costa Rica. When small groups broke away from the bigger family, they might have to wander some distance to find an environment that would support them. As a result, humans spread quickly, but sparsely, across the continent. So, while these oldest sites can be found all across Mexico, we have only identified a dozen or so such locations from this early period, and each site (except for the Chiquihuite cave) has only given up a very few artifacts. What we have are a few animal bones, hearths where fires had been lit and, most numerous of all, stone tools. 

The tools from this early age were created very simply by banging one stone against another to produce a sharp edge. The result was a large, handheld tool that could do several jobs, including cutting, squashing, scraping and stabbing. However, they were not crafted to do any of these tasks particularly well. Most notably, there were no small, sharp projectiles that could have been used for hunting. These might have existed in bone, wood or even ivory, but if so, none have survived.

The advance in technology that took place around 14,000 years ago was so sudden that it has been argued it marks the arrival of a new wave of humans into Mexico. It coincided with a climate that had become more forgiving, with large animals now roaming across the land in greater numbers. 

Did early humans in Mexico hunt megafauna?

In 2019, as workmen cleared the site for the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport, they started to find giant bones. This had once been an area of swamp where prehistoric animals lived, fed and died. By 2022, 500 mammoth bones, 200 camel bones and evidence of other animals — such as wild horses and giant sloths — had been excavated. As a result, we have a detailed insight into the environment that the people of this age would have hunted in.

While we imagine mammoths as large, fur-covered creatures, well-adapted to the cold, they in fact consisted of many different species, and the Columbian mammoth, which is believed to be the species found in Mexico, wandered as far south as Costa Rica. DNA does not survive well in the tropics, but with so many bones now discovered at the airport, a few samples could be extracted. The results suggest that these animals should be reclassified as a separate Mexican mammoth. 

These wonderful creatures survived as an isolated population, even while their northern cousins were dying off. One explanation for this is that they were more varied eaters, not dependent solely on grass but also grazing on scrub and trees. Did humans hunt such powerful animals, and did human hunting contribute to their eventual extinction in Mexico? 

Weapons for the hunt

Many years before the discoveries at the airport, a site at Santa Isabel Ixtapan, a town in México state, revealed the remains of two mammoths that appear to have been chased into the swamps, where human hunters may have hassled them until they collapsed. However, some archeologists question how often such hunts could have been successful. To paraphrase archeologist Richard MacNeish, if a man killed a mammoth, he probably never stopped talking about it for the rest of his life. 

To even occasionally hunt such large animals would have required a cooperative group effort, probably with some system of hierarchy. It helped that stone tools had become far better crafted, new techniques producing projectiles that might be fixed to a wooden shaft to create a formidable spear. By this time, the stone industry had become so varied in its production that we can even identify regional differences. One type of fluted projectile, for example, is only found in the highlands. There is also evidence of the use of organic material, suggesting these people might have had ropes, nets, bags and baskets.

Whether big animals were a regular part of the diet or a rare bonus, man was successfully adapting to this new world. Genetic research argues for a notable increase in population at the beginning of this period.  There are certainly far more sites identified in the archaeological record from this point onwards, with some 40 scattered across Mexico. However, we should not be too fixated on modern borders. The people living in northern Mexico at this time probably had closer links to the clans living in the southern U.S. than to the people finding their food in the Mexican highlands.

Chasing seasonal abundance

While humans were nomadic, they did not wander across the landscape aimlessly. Groups were likely to move around a familiar territory, regularly returning to favorite sites, such as the Chiquihuite cave. Their wanderings might also bring them to lagoons and the coast, these visits timed to exploit a seasonal abundance of food. 

Mounds of seashells suggest that on these occasions, humans might stay in one place for a considerable length of time. Yet, life was still sufficiently mobile to limit investment in any one site. Caves were popular where they were available; elsewhere, shelter might be whatever roof could be easily constructed with a few branches and then happily abandoned when the group moved on. Without a kiln or oven, there was no pottery or bread.

What the discovery of ‘Naia’ in Yucatán tells us

Quite miraculously, we have a human skeleton from this period. There is no evidence our early ancestors had the habit of burying their dead — although that time was coming — and bodies would have been left for scavengers, the bones chewed and scattered. So the survival of the skeleton of a young woman, who scientists have named Naia, was purely accidental. 

She was 15–16 years old when she died, just 1.41 meters tall, already a mother, and physically fit from a life of continual exercise, but undernourished. She was in a cave in the Yucatán when she fell to her death. As water levels rose, the cave flooded, and it was 15,000 years before divers, searching for animal bones, found her skull. Numerous other bones were lying close by, and eventually, 80% of the woman’s skeleton was recovered. 

When we have a skull, we can recreate a model of what the person might have looked like; dressed in modern clothes, Naia could have strolled down a Mexico City street without attracting attention. Matching her DNA to other finds suggests she belonged to a population that had wandered onto the Bering Strait when it was exposed from the sea and had lived there in isolation for some time before moving into the Americas. As we said, every discovery tends to pose more questions than answers!

Adapting to a new, colder climate and the rise of agriculture in Mexico

9,000 years ago, the climate turned colder and drier, once again forcing humans to adapt. As the game thinned out, amphibians, reptiles and snails played a more important part in the diet. It was a time when stone tools became more numerous and displayed ever finer workmanship.  New technologies, such as harpoons, appeared, and there is an argument that some projectiles were so small and finely crafted that they were intended for use with bows and arrows.  It was now that humans made the single most important step they would ever take. They started to grow their own food.  

This occurred quite independently in many different regions of the planet, at least four of which were in the Americas, including Mexico. Farming should be seen less as a “Eureka” step forward and more as a reaction to a climate that was once again changing and becoming too hostile to rely on food gathered directly from nature.  

That, however, is another story.

Bob Pateman is a historian and librarian. He is editor of On On Magazine and the author of several children’s books.

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