The Tepexpan Man is a Pre-Columbian era

Pre-Columbian era

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 skeleton, discovered by archaeologist Helmut de Terra in February 1947, on the shores of the former Lake Texcoco in central Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. The skeleton was found near mammoth

Mammoth

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...

 remains and thought to be at least 10,000 years old. Dr. de Terra's research was funded by the Viking Fund, now the Wenner Gren Foundation. The scientific paper 'Tepexpan Man, (with J. Romero and T.D. Stewart) Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, 1949, no. 11) was published in 1949. The skeleton was fancifully hailed by Time magazine as the oldest Mexican Soldier.

The skeleton is now believed to be about 4,700 years old, based on uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

geochronology.

Some researchers have proposed that Tepexpan 'man' was actually a woman.