A burial site containing the skeletal remains of 49 men, who are believed to be Aztec warriors, was discovered Feb. 10 in Mexico city. Archaeologists say the skeletons of the mass burial site might be those of warriors who made a last-stand against the army of the Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés.

If the burial is indeed that of a last-stand posse, I'm reminded of another Native American tribe's warrior society: the Cheyenne's "Dog Soldiers" (also known as "Dog Men"). The Cheyenne's Dog Soldiers wore a long sash and had a quiver of three "sacred arrows." Their sacrificial role was to be the final line of resistance in an attack or a battle. They would draw a sacred arrow and use it to nail their sash to the ground, immobilizing them, and forcing them to stand their ground.

The discovery of these possible Aztec "Dog Soldiers" was made in Tlatelolco square, known as the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. Tlatelolco has a defiant and bloody history.

In Aztec times, it was one of Tenochtitlan's thriving market places. Tenochtitlan was the Aztec capital – site of modern-day Mexico City – which was built on a vast lake system and laced with canals used for farming and transport. It was here that Cortés defeated the final redoubt of the Aztec resistance, so it would make sense that the burial site found is that of warriors defending their city.

The inscription of a monument in the plaza recalls the final resistance posed by the warriors of Aztec Emperor Cuauthémoc: "Heroically defended by Cuauthémoc, Tlatelolco fell to the power of Hernán Cortés. It was neither a triumph or defeat. It was the painful birth of the mestizo nation that is the Mexico of today."

In his memoirs, Cortés remembers the battle (or massacre) a little differently: "They no longer had nor could find any arrows, javelins or stones with which to attack us, and our allies fighting with us were armed with swords and bucklers, and slaughtered so many of them on land and in the water that more than forty thousand were killed or taken that day. So loud was the wailing of the women and children that there was not one man among us whose heart did not bleed at the sound..."

Today, Tlatelolco is perhaps more remembered by Mexicans as the site of the brutal massacre of protesting students in October 1968, on the eve of the Summer Olympics, which were being held in the country. An unknown number of students (estimates vary from hundreds to a thousand) were mowed down by the army's machine guns, snipers, and government-armed thugs. The event is considered by many to be the beginning-of-the-end for Mexico's one-party dictatorship, though it would take 32 more until a president not from the PRI was officially voted into the presidency.

An immense swath of Mexican history, it seems, could be told from this one plaza.