A 13,000 year-old skeleton of a teenage girl has been found underwater. Experts said it's one of the oldest ever discovered.
It's the discovery of a lifetime, a 10 hour cave adventure that is 500 feet underwater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
Mike Young supplied the gear that was made in his Fort Smith shop.
“It was an entire skeleton of a young lady 14 to 15 years old,” Young said. “They also found other things like saber tooth cats' skeletons of other species that are now extinct.”
The teen is known as Naia. Experts said she grew up in the Ice Age.
With a dive so deep, the California divers needed the proper tools.
“They couldn`t do the dive on conventional SCUBA,” Young said. “It was a pretty deep dive, and they were having to do dives that were eight to 10 hours long.”
Young supplied four sets of what's known as a rebreather.
“With a rebreather, you`re recirculating the gas and only adding oxygen to it and so you can do really long dives,” Young said.
Young said the find changes history.
“This young lady has DNA that is found in most of the Native Americans today,” Young said. "It changes the migration path, and it predates when they thought the migration occurred.
“I was excited. It`s a good story,” Young said.
And the story of finding Naia, sunken treasure---Young said it's a tale to tell for many dives to come.
Young expects the skeletons will be donated to science.
A rebreather can costs up to $12,000.
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