One of the Island's Moai statues; Source: The Independent UK

But the first British archaeological expedition in nearly a century to the archipelago, whose giant artifacts have long baffled academics and explorers, has arrived at a conclusion which threatens to overturn a 50-year-old consensus about the role played by the island’s ancient road system.

The team, from London and Manchester, travelled to the island off Chile to examine the toppled minimalist statues which researchers have long believed were abandoned on the roadside during failed attempts to haul them from inland quarries to their final vantage points overlooking the coast. There are about 1,000 statues, most on platforms on the island’s perimeter, with others inland in an apparently random fashion.

The theory about these inland rock effigies, which are known as moai and weigh up to 86 tons each, was first outlined in 1958 by the Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdhal, who suggested that the ancient Polynesians simply left the broken statues beside the track and they served no spiritual purpose.

But evidence from the researchers, from University College London (UCL) and Manchester University, has upset this convention after hi-tech equipment discovered that, far from being the detritus of clumsy construction workers, each of the tumbled statues had a stone platform and would have had pride of place on the road system as part of a religious avenue.

The discovery confirms the findings of the last British archaeologist to work on the island, Katherine Routledge, in 1914, and suggests that rather than serving solely as a transportation route for coast-bound statues, the system of tracks criss-crossing the archipelago had a more complex role.

Researchers have long assumed that the quarry in an extinct volcano, Rano Raraku, where the statues were carved, was merely a workplace from which the roads fanned out to the coastal sites. The latest findings show that the volcano was in fact also a sacred site.

Dr Sue Hamilton, of UCL, said: “Ever since Heyerdhal, it has been assumed that the roads were used for transportation and little else. But what we know now is that the roads very much had a ceremonial function and the quarry was where the islanders would go because it was a sacred centre.

“The statues by the roadside were not abandoned. They had individual platforms and faced in towards the road. They ended up on the ground after falling over in the intervening centuries but we think it is beyond doubt that they intended to stand where they were found. Volcano cones were considered as points of entry to the underworld by the ancient inhabitants of the island. It seems that the volcano was a holy place. It was the birthplace of the statues and people would come to it rather like a cathedral.”

The British team say that as the roads approach Rano Raraku, the statues become more frequent, suggesting they form the climax of a processional route to the volcano.

The inhabitants of Easter Island, carved their figures between 1200 and 1500AD. The tallest statue, named Paro, is almost 10m high and weighs 75 tonnes. Several expeditions have tried to re-create their transport, using wooden rollers and timber A-frames. But Dr Hamilton said: “If you just focus on one part of the story of Rapa Nui [the tribal name for Easter Island], then you will miss the wider history. We will not get the answers to how the statues were moved; we need to consider them in the context of their landscape and its spiritual dimension.”

Source: The Independent UK

The pyramid was discovered at Huaca Colorada, which translates as ‘coloured hill’. Excavation leader Professor Edward Swenson, of the University of Toronto, describes how he suspected that the area may be archaeologically significant. “I knew it was more than a natural hill – this was modified.”

Swenson’s hunch paid off. With the pyramid so far only partially uncovered, archaeologists have already made remarkable discoveries. “Our biggest surprise was that at the top of this pyramid construction we found elite residences”, said Prof Swenson, who added that it is very unusual to find pyramids used in this way. The Moche are known to have used pyramids for burials and ritual activity rather than everyday living.

The living complex would have housed no more than 25 people, and was complete with patios, a kitchen, and stands for ‘paica’ – large vessels for storing water and corn beer. The team also identified a bin used to hold guinea pigs: “The preservation was so good that we actually came across guinea pig coprolites (faeces).”

Several murals covered the corridors at the pyramid’s summit. The best-preserved of these depicts a Moche warrior – who Swenson describes as looking “like a Smurf” – carrying a club. Other murals include a depiction of what appears to be a cactus with two mountain peaks and a rainbow, and a representation of two litter-bearers carrying a person.

Evidence of ritual sacrifice was also discovered at the site. The skeletons of three adolescent girls, and body parts belonging to four other individuals, were found on a platform at the top of the pyramid. The girls were buried with beads around their neck and their feet were close together, suggesting that they had been bound. Charring on the girls’ knees indicate that their bodies were subject to “ritualistic burning.”

This evidence raises the possibility that the girls were sacrificed as part of a ritual, something not uncommon among the Moche. However physical anthropologists examining the skeletons could find no evidence of trauma. This means the girls either died naturally or were killed in such a way that no evidence was left on their bones. “It’s possible they were sacrificed but we don’t know,” adds Prof Swenson.

To the south of the pyramid the team found a large number of copper artefacts including spatulas, knives, smelting receptacles and ornaments. “I’ve never found such a high quantity of copper,” says Swenson. “The power of these elites could very much have been grounded in control of copper production.”

Huaca Colorada is near the coast of Peru where copper is scarce, so the site’s rulers would have had to trade with people living in the mountains, at least 200km to the east. Swenson speculates that the rulers “may have been considered lords – but lords of a particular kind – in transforming ore into finished products”. Alternatively, says Swenson, there could have been a “corporation of co-operating but high status practitioners.”

Huaca Colorada appears to be undefended. Swenson said the team found “no walls, no sling-stones… unlike many of the sites built on the coastal hills.” The area surrounding the settlement was mostly flat, and would have offered little resistance from invaders. There was certainly warfare in the Moche world, but perhaps, for some unknown reason, Huaca Colorada and its pyramid were off-limits to invaders. “It’s kind of like (the) open city of Rome in World War II,” says Swenson. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

Excavation work continues at the site, and researchers will conduct a GPR survey on the pyramid this summer to determine its size.

Source: The Independent UK

Map of modeled cumulative hillslope erosion/deposition (HED) for the Wadi Ziqlab watershed after 200 years. The map shows HED due to human landuse, after subtracting 'natural' surface change from surface change with shifting cultivation and grazing; Source: EurekAlert; Credit: The Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics Project/ASU/NSF

An article published in the April 2010 issue of the journal American Antiquity by researchers at Arizona State University and North Carolina State University describes the use of computational modeling to study the long-term effects of varying land use practices by farmers and herders on landscapes. It compares the results with the Levantine Neolithic archaeological record, which preserves a record of the long-term socioecology of subsistence farming.

“Using computational modeling is a new approach in the field of archaeology. Archaeology is known for learning about the past, but these methods can help us predict the future,” said Michael Barton, co-author and co-director of ASU’s Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity.

“Computational Modeling and Neolithic Socioecological Dynamics: A Case Study from Southwest Asia” demonstrates how new modeling techniques are used to simulate different land use practices such as intensive farming, shifting cultivation (also called swidden or slash-and-burn) and grazing to determine long-term effects on landscapes. The research models land use in the Wadi Ziqlab drainage of northern Jordan, an area where ancient Neolithic inhabitants cultivated cereals (wheat and barley), pulses (lentils and chickpeas), herded sheep and goats and raised domestic pigs 8,000 years ago.

Intensive farming is where a plot of land is cleared of shrubs and trees and used year after year. Shifting cultivation is where new land is cleared every few years, but only farmed for a few years before it is abandoned. Abandoned, or fallowed, land regains its fertility as the natural vegetation regrows so that it can be farmed again in the future.

“One of the more interesting findings from our study was that a combination of shifting cultivation and grazing results in more erosion run off, but that run off actually makes the farmland around tiny hamlets more fertile,” said Barton, who is also a professor in ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. However, Barton notes that the same kinds of land use will cause increasing degradation and loss of productive farmland around larger villages.

Numerous simulation experiments were conducted to identify long-term landscape and land use dynamics. Researchers used the Geographic Resource Analysis and Support System, an open-source, general purpose geographic information system to combine detailed maps of topography, soils, vegetation and regional climate to model the consequences of different forms of land use.

Most experiments spanned land usage over a 40-year period and a few extended over a 200-year period. Experiments were also conducted where there were no inhabitants to separate landscape changes over time due to natural influences from the effects of human activities.

“We’re filling in the gaps in the archaeological record,” said Isaac Ullah, co-author and ASU research assistant. “We are finding ways to make archaeology applicable to what we are doing today and possibly impact future policy decisions.”

Ullah added that by creating these models and combining them with archaeological data we are also learning about the origins of the vegetation typical of the Mediterranean today. This allows us to achieve a series of vegetation profiles that provide a model of long-term landscape dynamics that cannot be seen using traditional archaeological techniques.

The experiments for this study go one step further than other geographic information system modeling projects by exploring human decision-making.

Helena Mitasova, co-author and an associate professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University assisted with the development of the soil erosion model that was used to determine how ancient societies land use practices impacted the landscape evolution.

She said that geospatial simulations allow them to better understand the relationship between the development of prehistoric settlements and landscape evolution, especially the consequences of agricultural practices that could degrade land well beyond the settlements and have broad long-term effects on entire landscapes.

“We can explore various hypotheses on how the communities interacted with their land and how they managed it,” said Mitasova. “Although soil erosion is a natural process, through the models we are able to investigate the contribution of different agricultural practices used by prehistoric societies to land degradation and how it influenced the evolution of these communities.”

“The research shows the importance of threshold effects when people alter landscapes for agriculture. Land use practices that are beneficial in one context can be very harmful in a different context,” said Barton.

Barton added as communities grew, they passed a threshold where farming practices that once increased yields began to cause soil loss. Faced with declining productivity, farmers were forced to make decisions, either to return to the small hamlets, choose herding over farming, or invest more labor in their fields in the form of terraces, diversion dams or new forms of cropping. All of these solutions can be found in the archaeological record of the ancient Near East.

The study was the first of several funded by the National Science Foundation’s Biocomplexity in the Environment Program. Similar experiments spanning different time periods and different locations are also planned.

Source: EurekAlert

Students on summit of newly discovered pyramid; Source: Colorado State University

At the time of European contact, the Purépecha Empire – sometimes called the Tarascan Empire – controlled much of western Mexico with a mutually fortified frontier shared with their rivals, the Aztecs to the east.

The settlement may be as large as 5 square kilometers and dates to A.D. 1000-1520. Initial results suggest the peak occupation of the newly discovered urban center occurred just prior to the formation of the Purépecha Empire, further indicating that results from the study may yield new clues regarding the empire’s formation.

“Much of this settlement is similar to a modern-day suburb with hundreds of small house mounds where ordinary families lived and carried out activities. By today’s standards this urban center seems small but by documenting these ruins, my team and I are helping anthropologists identify different aspects of ancient cities,” said Christopher Fisher, associate professor in CSU’s Department of Anthropology. “The Lake Pátzcuaro Basin was the geopolitical core of the empire with a dense population, centralized settlement systems, engineered environment and a socially stratified society.”

The discovery was made in the summer of 2009. Fisher and his team were able to map more than 1,300 architectural features from 1 square-kilometer of the settlement. Items mapped included house mounds, room blocks, buildings, small temples, plazas, agricultural features and a pyramid. The team has only documented about one-fifth of the entire site and will be returning this summer for more mapping and research.

Using the TrimbleRecon rugged handheld computers as well as the GeoXH and GeoXT GPS receivers, Fisher’s team quickly and accurately mapped every cultural feature they encountered with significant accuracy. The researchers used extensive data gathered from surveys and mapping to explore relationships among climatic fluctuation, landscape change and the formation of complex societies.

Along with the discovery of the settlement, Fisher discovered six other previously unknown settlements and hundreds of agricultural terraces. In his fieldwork, Fisher incorporates archaeological and earth science techniques to map the distribution of ancient settlements, document past and present soil erosion, investigate ancient agricultural features and excavate archaeological sites.

The discovery of the settlement is part of Fisher’s National Science Foundation-funded project, Legacies of Resilience: The Lake Pátzcuaro Basin Archaeological Project. This multidisciplinary research project includes archaeologists, geologists and geographers from the United States and Mexico. They explore prehistoric sites to better understand the development of prehistoric societies and relationships between humans and climate change.

“One of the great challenges for the 21st century will be creating solutions to link social and environmental change. Archaeology is uniquely poised to make a significant contribution to this debate by helping to explain trajectories of socio-ecosystem evolution over long time periods. Our research reveals new insights into the impacts of the Medieval climatic anomaly on societies in central Mexico yielding clues about the impacts of modern climatic change in the region,” said Fisher.

Fisher’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation, with permits supplied by the National Institute for Anthropology and History in Mexico. GPS ultra-rugged handheld computers and mapping software from Trimble were used. Fisher and his team will present preliminary findings from the 2009 field season at the annual Society for American Archaeology meetings in St. Louis, April 14-18.

For more information on the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin Archaeological Project,  please CLICK HERE.

Source: Colorado State University

A Skeleton, unearthed in Peru conveying the first direct evidence of Inca deaths caused by Spanish conquerors around 500 years ago; Source: Science News; Credit: M. Murphy

European newcomers killed some Inca individuals with guns, steel lances or hammers, and possibly light cannons, scientists report online in the March 23 American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Surprisingly, though, no incisions or other marks characteristic of sword injuries appear on these bones, according to a team led by anthropologist Melissa Murphy of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Spanish documents from the 16th century emphasize steel swords as a favored military weapon.

Many Spaniards who helped Francisco Pizarro conquer the Incas were fortune-seekers, not soldiers, “so the absence of sword injuries makes some sense,” Murphy explains.

Skeletons in the Inca cemetery, as well as at another grave site about a mile away, display a gruesome array of violent injuries, many probably caused by maces, clubs and other Inca weapons, the researchers report. Those weapons may have been wielded by Inca from communities known to have collaborated with the Spanish, or might have been borrowed by the Spanish, they posit. “The nature and pattern of these skeletal injuries were unlike anything colleagues and I had seen before,” Murphy says. “Many of these people died brutal, horrible deaths.”

Little is known about early European dealings with the Inca, remarks anthropologist Haagen Klaus of Utah Valley University in Orem.

“Murphy’s data show the types of violence that emerged from the first moments of contact between Spaniards and the Inca,” Klaus says. Pottery and artifacts at the sites date to between 1470 and 1540, placing the deaths close to when Spaniards captured the Inca emperor around 1532. It took the invaders nearly another 40 years to control all Inca lands.

Murphy’s team assessed skeletons of 258 Inca individuals, age 15 or older, excavated several years ago at the two cemeteries.

In one cemetery, bodies had been hastily deposited in shallow graves. One-quarter of 120 skeletons displayed head and body injuries inflicted at the time of death, as indicated by a lack of healed bone and other clues. That’s a conservative estimate, Murphy notes, since soft-tissue damage doesn’t show up on bones.

“I’m struck by the severity of violence in certain individual cases, where the skull was essentially crushed, repeatedly stabbed or struck, or shot through by gunshot,” comments archaeologist Steven Wernke of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Whoever killed these individuals wanted to intimidate survivors as well, he asserts.

An Inca skull, shown from the top and the front, displays holes and fractures consistent with a gunshot injury suffered at the hands of Spanish invaders; Source: Science News; Credit: M. Murphy

One man’s skull contained two holes and radiating fractures consistent with damage produced by early guns that shot ammunition at low velocities.

Another male skull sported three small rectangular openings in the back of the head. These injuries resemble those on skulls from a 1461 battlefield cemetery in England, Murphy says. Medieval weapons tipped with steel spikes or sharp beaks probably caused these wounds, she proposes.

Three other skeletons exhibited injuries likely due to Spanish weapons. Other skeletons contained head and body fractures probably inflicted by attackers bearing Inca weapons.

Individuals placed in this cemetery may have been slain in a documented 1536 Inca uprising against Spanish rulers in nearby Lima, Murphy suggests. Family members collected their bodies and buried them quickly near previously deceased relatives, she speculates.

At the second Inca cemetery, 18 of 138 skeletons showed definite signs of violent death, all from Inca weapons. That supports a scenario in which social turmoil around the time Spaniards arrived triggered conflicts between Inca communities, Murphy says.

Source: Science News

So perhaps John Hoopes is the closest thing at the University of Kansas to the movie action hero.

Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program, recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica where he and colleagues evaluated the stone balls for UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization that might grant the spheres World Heritage Status.

His report will help determine if sites linked to the massive orbs will be designated for preservation and promotion because of their “outstanding value to humanity.”

Hoopes, who researches ancient cultures of Central and South America, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Costa Rican spheres. He explained that although the stone spheres are very old, international interest in them is still growing.

“The earliest reports of the stones come from the late 19th century, but they weren’t really reported scientifically until the 1930s — so they’re a relatively recent discovery,” Hoopes said. “They remained unknown until the United Fruit Company began clearing land for banana plantations in southern Costa Rica.”

According to Hoopes, around 300 balls are known to exist, with the largest weighing 16 tons and measuring eight feet in diameter. Many of these are clustered in Costa Rica’s Diquis Delta region. Some remain pristine in the original places of discovery, but many others have been relocated or damaged due to erosion, fires and vandalism.

The KU researcher said that scientists believe the stones were first created around 600 A.D., with most dating to after 1,000 A.D. but before the Spanish conquest.

“We date the spheres by pottery styles and radiocarbon dates associated with archeological deposits found with the stone spheres,” Hoopes said. “One of the problems with this methodology is that it tells you the latest use of the sphere but it doesn’t tell you when it was made. These objects can be used for centuries and are still sitting where they are after a thousand years. So it’s very difficult to say exactly when they were made.”

Speculation and pseudoscience have plagued general understanding of the stone spheres. For instance, publications have claimed that the balls are associated with the “lost” continent of Atlantis. Others have asserted that the balls are navigational aids or relics related to Stonehenge or the massive heads on Easter Island.

“Myths are really based on a lot of very rampant speculation about imaginary ancient civilizations or visits from extraterrestrials,” Hoopes said.

In reality, archaeological excavations in the 1940s found the stone balls to be linked with pottery and materials typical of pre-Columbian cultures of southern Costa Rica.

“We really don’t know why they were made,” Hoopes said. “The people who made them didn’t leave any written records. We’re left to archeological data to try to reconstruct the context. The culture of the people who made them became extinct shortly after the Spanish conquest. So, there are no myths or legends or other stories that are told by the indigenous people of Costa Rica about why they made these spheres.”

Hoopes has a created a popular Web page to knock down some of the misconceptions about the spheres. He said the stones’ creation, while vague, certainly had nothing to do with lost cities or space ships.

“We think the main technique that was used was pecking and grinding and hammering with stones,” said Hoopes. “There are some spheres that have been found that still have the marks of the blows on them from hammer stones. We think that that’s how they were formed, by hammering on big rocks and sculpting them into a spherical shape.”

You can find Hoopes website here. Article via University of Kansas

A Photograph of what a Viking may have looked like; By Flickr User Hans s

The analysis – performed by Danish researchers on bones from skeletons found during excavations in south Greenland – revealed that the settlers’ Nordic blood was mixed with Celtic blood, probably originating from the British Isles.

Danish archaeologists are currently conducting the first regional study of southern Greenland’s original settlers, whose colonies date back to the year 985. The skeletons disinterred outside the old church also date back to just a few years after that period.

‘The research results haven’t yet been published, but initial results somewhat surprisingly suggest that the people in the graves were more Celtic than Nordic,’ said Jette Arneborg, curator and senior scientist at the National Museum, and one of the Danish archaeologists involved in the project.

‘We’ve always known that Norsemen travelled a lot and we also know that the early inhabitants of the Faroe Islands and Iceland had traces of Celtic genes. But now we also have evidence of this in Greenland as well,’ she added.

Although the DNA analysis reveals the inhabitants had Celtic blood in their veins, Arneborg said there was no question that the settlers were Nordic.

‘Everything these people did – their culture, means of nourishment and so on – was clearly Scandinavian,’ she said.

Earlier studies of populations living in the Faeroe Islands and Iceland have shown that it was primarily the women who were of Celtic origin.

Arneborg said that indicated the Vikings may have come from Norway down past the British Isles – where they took women with them – and then continued on into the North Atlantic, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.

Source: The Copenhagen Post

The discovery adds up to the sarcophagus recently uncovered by specialists; Source: Art Daily; Credit: EFE/Héctor Montaño/INAH.

The discovery adds up to the sarcophagus recently uncovered by specialists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). The wall dated in 708 AD was detected at El Palacio; a stucco portrait of K’inich B’aaknal Chaahk, the most powerful seignior of the ancient Maya city, was found as well.

Dr. Juan Yadeun Angulo, coordinator of Tonina Conservation and Research Project, declared that K’inich B’aaknal Chaahk forged “one of the greatest military seigniories of Maya history before Mexica people arrived to the region”.

Two vaulted rooms found with the wall and portrait are part of El Palacio or Casa de las Luciernagas (Palace or House of Fireflies), an architectural complex at the Acropolis, which is “one of the greatest pyramidal structures of Mexico and the world”.

Dr. Carlos Pallan Gayol, director of INAH Acervo Jeroglifico e Iconografico Maya, Ajimaya (Maya Hieroglyphic and Iconographic Heap), who has dedicated to study the recently found wall, declared that it is important because it confirms that The Palace was the power seat of K’inich B’aaknal Chaahk, the 6th of 14 (known to present) rulers of Tonina.

“This wall is fundamental to understand a chapter of Tonina history between 680 and 715 AD, when the 6th seignior appears in the dynastic sequence of the site. To present, it is known that K’inich B’aaknal Chaahk was the ruler with greater politic and hegemonic power in Tonina, a city known in its times as Po’ (white in Mixe-Zoque language)”, he explained.

Behind the stuccoed wall with hieroglyphs that represent 2 dates corresponding to March and June of 708 AD, is located the seat of a throne, the only of 4 found at El Palacio placed in a very private and restricted location.

Pallan, also part of INAH National Coordination of Archaeology, remarked the good conservation state of the wall which, besides the fine-modeled stucco hieroglyphs, maintains most of its blue and reddish pigments.

“The seignior might have seated behind the wall to converse with foreign dignitaries and other characters, clearly establishing the rank difference with them. K’inich B’aaknal Chaahk was the personification of political power and had a sacred character as well”.

The wall, considered Pallan Gayol, will bring in valuable information for different fields, since it contains historical data, as well as mythological and linguistic information”, he concluded.

Source: Art Daily

The Location of the dicovery - Lagartero, Mexico; Source: Google Earth

In the bas-relief sculpture the Mayan ruler rises above an individual who lies at his feet, “a scene representing the seizing of power by one Maya group from another,” INAH said, adding that the archaeological area of Lagartero will be open to the public this year.

INAH experts found the stone monument in late 2009 at the 10th section of Pyramid 4 in Lagartero, the source said. Archaeologist Sonia Rivero Torres, who heads the Lagartero archaeological project, said that the stele or commemorative monument – the first to be found complete on the site – measures 2 meters (6 1/2 feet) long, 55 centimeters (22 inches) wide and 6 centimeters (2 1/3 inches) thick.

The stele was sculpted in metamorphic rock, known locally as “heart of stone.” “In the pre-Colombian monument the profile image of a Mayan ruler is seen standing over a bench carrying a bag of incense in one hand and dressed in a loincloth bound with a sash and wearing sandals and a feather headdress.

“At his feet, lying on his back on the bench, lies another, smaller person with his torso opened as a sign of sacrifice or of being overthrown,” the archaeologist said.

The expert added that the stele was discovered while exploring a rectangular stone casket, which had possibly been plundered in pre-Columbian times since no bones were found inside. The archaeologists also found, when they went down to a lower level of the pyramid, a pair of large earthenware pots, broken but complete, one of which contained an smaller, unbroken pot.

Together with these ceramics was a polychrome plate and a black vase with a zoopmorphic lid that contained a rich offering of jade objects, notable among which were two earflaps, a jointed turtle and a beaded necklace. Another box was found in the fifth section of Pyramid 4, from which 40 vessels of different shapes, zoomorphic vases and a few human bones were recovered, INAH said. Lagartero’s pre-Columbian ceremonial center extends the length and breadth of the 8 hectares (2 1/2 acres) that make up the islet of El Limonar, the biggest of the 11 dotting the lakes of Lagos de Colon, in the community of Cristobal Colon in the municipality of La Trinitaria, Chiapas.

Lagartero is known to have been occupied from the Classical Period to the Early Post-Classical Period, which is to say from 300 A.D. to 1200 A.D. Given its strategic wetlands location, the habitat of fresh-water species like the alligator, the Maya settlement controlled the area’s natural resources and could also restrict access by water. Lagartero was a key point for trading goods and products between the highlands of Guatemala and Mexico’s central plateau.

Archaeologists working at the site have uncovered an enclosed ball-playing court together with its five altars, along with a series of architectural structures, INAH said

Source: Art Daily