A Mayan village frozen in time 1,400 years ago by a volcanic eruption reveals that commoners had power in a culture best known for the works of the elite class.
Though elites in city centers had an impressive record in developing arts, hieroglyphs and a complex calendar, rural villagers weren't under the thumb of this ruling class, excavations in El Salvador suggest. In fact, nearly all decisions appeared to be under local control, and villagers had a remarkable quality of life, said Payson Sheets, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
"Each household had, for instance, a total of about 70 ceramic vessels," Sheets told Live Science. "I don't think we have that many pots and pans and vessels in our house." [ Photos: Excavating a Mayan Village Frozen in Time]
A Mayan village frozen in time 1,400 years ago by a volcanic eruption reveals that commoners had power in a culture best known for the works of the elite class.
Frozen village
In 1978, Sheets discovered Cerén, a village in what is now El Salvador that thrived during the Mayan Classic period (A.D. 250-900). During an archaeological survey of the region, Sheets spoke with a local man who mentioned buried buildings that had been uncovered by some local construction work. Sheets went to look. He saw the floor of a house and its collapsed thatch roof that a bulldozer had uncovered from beneath 16 feet (5 meters) of volcanic ash. Assuming the home had to be less than a century old — thatch doesn't last long in the El Salvadorian humidity — Sheets sent some thatch off to be radiocarbon dated. He was shocked to learn that the house was 1,400 years old.
Further excavations revealed an extraordinarily detailed tableau beneath the ash layer, so much so that the site has been called the "Pompeii of the New World." Fossilized imprints of the crops that were growing when the volcano erupted in the late 600s allowed the researchers to reconstruct agricultural fields. These hollowed-out impressions in the ash are so detailed that individual grains of maize are visible. Drip marks in the dirt reveal the outline of each building's eaves.
Though elites in city centers had an impressive record in developing arts, hieroglyphs and a complex calendar, rural villagers weren't under the thumb of this ruling class, excavations in El Salvador suggest. In fact, nearly all decisions appeared to be under local control, and villagers had a remarkable quality of life, said Payson Sheets, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
"Each household had, for instance, a total of about 70 ceramic vessels," Sheets told Live Science. "I don't think we have that many pots and pans and vessels in our house." [ Photos: Excavating a Mayan Village Frozen in Time] |
