One of the earliest large-scale buildings by the Maya civilization combines artistic skill and symbolic structures with a distinct lack of a clear social hierarchy, a new study has revealed. Around 1000 BC, these early Maya organized the construction of large platforms, rapids, and canals without tyrannical leaders having to impose their authority over the population.
These conclusions come from an analysis of the archaeological site at Aguada Fenix, near the border between Mexico and Guatemala. The team, led by Takeshi Inomata, from the University of Arizona College of Anthropology (US), published their findings in an article in the journal Science Advances on the 5th of this month.
Excavations indicate that the occupation of Aguada Phoenix began around 1200 BC, and that large-scale construction in the area began in 1050 BC, and continued until the apparent abandonment of the site about 300 years later.
Until relatively recently, it was thought that this period, classified as the “Middle Preclassic” in Maya chronology, was characterized by modest-sized settlements, without massive constructions, but new archaeological discoveries have changed this view.
To uncover what was happening in the area 3,000 years ago, Inomata and his colleagues combined traditional excavations with the use of lidar, a technology that can be compared to radar, but uses laser pulses, generally emitted by planes, helicopters or drones.
Roughly speaking, a lidar device produces beams of light that “strike and return” to the ground, making it possible to map out terrain details that might be completely hidden by vegetation in traditional photographs. This is a very useful technique in ancient settlements that are now hidden behind dense tropical forests, such as in Mayan lands or even in the Amazon.
At a site in southeastern Mexico, researchers identified a series of structures on the so-called Great Plateau. It is an artificial platform made of clay and sediment on a natural limestone base. Its dimensions are 1,400 m by 400 m, and its height reaches 15 m. The general shape of the structure resembles that of a cross, and appears to be in line with the position of sunrise on February 24 and October 17, a time period that fits the rhythm of the Mayan calendar.
The Great Plateau is divided, on both sides, by a series of cliffs and “passes” below ground level. Around the building there are also several canals that can transport water from a nearby lake, known today as Lake Naranjito. The ancient inhabitants also partially dammed the lake’s waters, apparently to regulate its level at certain times of the year. The canals are up to five meters deep and 35 meters wide.
Even more curious is the absence of any sign of large areas with permanent dwellings or palace construction in the surrounding area, suggesting that there was no established elite in Aguada Fenix, and that the transformations in the landscape of the place were probably carried out collaboratively, with ritual objectives.
The most interesting evidence for this comes from smaller ritual structures located practically in the middle of the Great Plateau. There is, again, a strong hint of symbolism in it because of the cruciform shape: there are two cross-shaped pits, one inside the other – the larger one has “arms” over five meters long, the second (and deeper) is about half that size.
In the center of this smaller cross, in a geometric arrangement corresponding to the cardinal points, the builders carefully placed various pigments of mineral origin (blue for the north, green for the east, etc.). It is a practice that anticipates the use of a kind of color “code” for the cardinal points that would be incorporated into the cultures of the region centuries later, although the colors used in the Aguada Fénix are not the same as those that would later become “fundamental.”
Eventually, perhaps decades or even centuries after the cross-shaped pits were covered over by their builders, the site continued to be used for ceremonies. Above the holes, researchers also found offerings made of jade, a green stone highly prized by the people of the area. They are small, highly stylized figurines, representing things like a crocodile, a bird, and perhaps a woman giving birth.
This detailed attention to the ritual aspects of the site suggests, to researchers, that the construction of the site may have been carefully coordinated by experts with astronomical knowledge, something that would be of increasing importance to Maya society.
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