Nearly 3,000-year-old Mayan complex discovered, featuring pyramids and canals
The complex was discovered across three sites — Los Abuelos, Petnal and Cambrayal — near the significant Mayan site of Uaxactún in the Petén region of northern Guatemala, the ministry said in a statement.
The Mayan civilization arose around 2,000 BC and reached its height between 400 and 900 AD, predominantly in modern-day Mexico and Guatemala. During its height, people built temples, roads, pyramids and other monuments, and developed complex systems of writing, mathematics and astronomy.
Los Abuelos, which means 'The Grandparents' in Spanish, lies around 13 miles (21 kilometers) from Uaxactún and gets its name from two human-like rock figures found at the site, believed to represent an 'ancestral couple,' the ministry said.
These figures, along with several sacred sanctuaries, suggest it was an important site for Mayan rituals, said Luis Rodrigo Carrillo, Guatemala's vice minister of culture and sports, in a press briefing announcing the findings.
'Located here is one of the most important ritual centers in the region, with notable sanctuaries, helping to reassess our understanding of Mayan history,' the ministry said in a video announcing the discovery.
East of Los Abuelos lies Petnal, which features a 33-meter-high (108-foot) pyramid. At its peak are two preserved rooms adorned with murals depicting various symbolic representations, Carrillo said.
In Cambrayal, around three miles (4.8 kilometers) from Los Abuelos, scientists also identified 'unique' water canals inside a palace, marking a notable discovery, the ministry said.
'These sites form a previously unknown urban triangle whose existence we were unaware of until now… These new archeological discoveries constitute a testament of Mayan culture's greatness, which today we are making known to the whole world,' the ministry said.
The discoveries were made by Guatemalan and Slovak archaeologists, alongside international experts, as part of the Uaxactún Regional Archaeological Project (PARU) and with backing from Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, officials said.
While rare, discoveries of new Mayan sites still occasionally happen, thanks to new research and technological improvements.
In April, archaeologists uncovered a mysterious 1,700-year-old altar containing human remains in the nearby ancient city of Tikal, approximately 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of Uaxactún. Although discovered in a ruined Mayan city, archaeologists believe it wasn't decorated by Mayans, but was instead the work of artists trained hundreds of miles away in Teotihuacan.
Scientists in recent years have also detected new sites using laser mapping technology, revealing the interconnectivity of Mayan cities, towns and villages.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
6 hours ago
- Fox News
Neanderthals extracted animal fat in advanced food prep process 125,000 years ago: report
Neanderthals living 125,000 years ago in what is now modern-day Germany may have extracted and eaten fat from animal bones through an organized food preparation process that scientists describe as a 'fat factory.' While excavating the site of a former lake landscape called Neumark-Nord, archaeologists discovered thousands of bones from at least 172 large mammals, along with flint artifacts. The bones, which date back to an interglacial period in which Neanderthals lived, were from animals like red deer and horses, according to a study published on July 2 in Science Advances. While many of the bones that contained less bone marrow were spread out across the archaeological site, researchers observed that many of the marrow-rich bones were located in clusters — sites they call 'fat factories.' Researchers believe our extinct ancestors used tools to smash the bones into small fragments and then boiled them for hours. The grease, which then floated to the surface of the water, could be skimmed off the top and eaten — providing a calorie-dense food source for the archaic people. Prior to this, evidence of the practice had only dated back to 28,000 years ago, according to the research. "Neanderthals were clearly managing resources with precision — planning hunts, transporting carcasses, and rendering fat in a task-specific area," Dr. Lutz Kindler, the study's first author, said. "They understood both the nutritional value of fat and how to access it efficiently — most likely involving caching carcass parts at places in the landscape for later transport to and use at the grease rendering site. Fat was a "life-sustaining" resource for Neanderthals, especially during the winter and spring seasons when carbohydrates were scarce. Their diets consisted largely of animal protein, and consuming lots of protein without other nutrients could lead to a sometimes deadly condition called protein poisoning, the research noted. "The sheer size and extraordinary preservation of the Neumark-Nord site complex gives us a unique chance to study how Neanderthals impacted their environment, both animal and plant life," Dr. Fulco Scherjon, data manager and computer scientist on the project, said. "That's incredibly rare for a site this old—and it opens exciting new possibilities for future research." In recent years, scientists have also discovered that Neanderthals went diving for seashells that they could chip with stone hammers into thin and sharp cutting edges. Similarly, another study suggested Neanderthals may have buried their dead with flowers. Researchers Lutz Kindler and Wil Roebroeks did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Oldest wooden tools unearthed in East Asia show that ancient humans made planned trips to dig up edible plants
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Archaeologists have discovered 35 wooden tools from the Old Stone Age in China which they say show impressive craftsmanship, advanced cognitive skills and offer new insights into what ancient humans might have eaten. The 300,000-year-old tools are the oldest wooden artifacts ever documented in East Asia, according to a study published Thursday (July 3) in the journal Science. They include digging sticks made of pine and hardwood, hooks for cutting roots and small, pointed implements for extracting edible plants from the ground. "This discovery is exceptional because it preserves a moment in time when early humans were using sophisticated wooden tools to harvest underground food resources," study lead author Bo Li, a professor in the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences at the University of Wollongong Australia, said in a statement. The tools date to the early Paleolithic period, also known as the Old Stone Age (3.3 million to 300,000 years ago). Wooden artifacts from this time are extremely rare due to organic decomposition, and only a handful of archaeological sites have yielded similar objects, according to the new study. But most of these objects, including spears from Schöningen in Germany, were designed for hunting — these newfound tools were made for digging. Researchers found the tools buried in oxygen-poor clay sediments on the shores of an ancient lake in Gantangqing, an archaeological site in southwestern China's Yunnan province. The sediments preserved deliberate polishing and scraping marks on the tools, as well as plant and soil remains on some of the edges that gave researchers clues about the tools' function. Related: Pfyn culture flint tool: World's oldest known 'Swiss Army' knife "Our results suggest that hominins at Gantangqing made strategic utilization of lakeshore food resources," the researchers wrote in the study. "They made planned visits to the lakeshore and brought with them fabricated tools of selected wood for exploiting underground tubers, rhizomes, or corms." Such planned visits show that 300,000 years ago, human ancestors in East Asia were crafting and using tools for specific purposes, demonstrating considerable foresight and intention, the researchers wrote. The artifacts also suggest that these early humans had a good understanding of which plants and parts of plants were edible, the researchers noted. "The tools show a level of planning and craftsmanship that challenges the notion that East Asian hominins were technologically conservative," Li said in the statement. This idea is rooted in previous discoveries in East Asia of stone tools that seemed "primitive" in comparison to tools found in western Eurasia and Africa, according to the study. RELATED STORIES —Was it a stone tool or just a rock? An archaeologist explains how scientists can tell the difference —1.5 million-year-old bone tools crafted by human ancestors in Tanzania are oldest of their kind —150,000-year-old stone tools reveal humans lived in tropical rainforests much earlier than thought The researchers dated the tools using a technique developed by Li that uses infrared luminescence and another method called electron spin resonance, which measures a material's age through the number of electrons trapped inside its crystal defects due to exposure to natural radiation. Both produced estimates indicating that the wooden tools were between 250,000 and 361,000 years old. The plant remains on the tools have not been identified because their decomposition is too advanced, but other plant remains at Gantangqing indicate that early humans there ate berries, pine nuts, hazelnuts, kiwi fruit and aquatic tubers, according to the study. "The discovery challenges previous assumptions about early human adaptation," Li said in the statement. "While contemporary European sites (like Schöningen in Germany) focused on hunting large mammals, Gantangqing reveals a unique plant-based survival strategy."
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Remote cave in Guam reveals ancient voyagers carried rice to Pacific islands 3,500 years ago, study finds
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In a new study published today in Science Advances, my colleagues and I have uncovered the earliest evidence of rice in the Pacific Islands — at an ancient cave site on Guam in the Mariana Islands of western Micronesia. The domesticated rice was transported by the first islanders, who sailed 2,300 kilometers [1,400 miles] of open ocean from the Philippines about 3,500 years ago. The discovery settles long-standing academic debates and satisfies decades of curiosity about the origins and lifestyles of early Pacific peoples. The case of the Marianas, located more than 2,000 km [1,240 miles] east of the Philippines and northeast of Indonesia, is especially intriguing. These islands were the first places in Remote Oceania reached by anyone, in this case inhabited for the first time by Malayo-Polynesian-speaking populations from islands in Southeast Asia. For nearly two decades, scholars debated the timing and the overseas source of these first islanders, the ancestors of today's Chamorro people. How did they come to Guam and the Marianas? Archaeological research has confirmed settlement in the Mariana Islands 3,500 years ago at several sites in Guam, Tinian and Saipan. In 2020, the first ancient DNA analysis from Guam confirmed what archaeology and linguistics had suggested: the early settlers came from central or northern Philippines. Further ancestral links trace them back to Taiwan, the homeland of both their language and their genetics. Was this epic voyage intentional or accidental? What food source allowed these early seafarers to survive? Today, Pacific islanders rely mostly on breadfruit, banana, coconut, taro and yams. Rice, though a staple food in ancient and modern Asian societies, is challenging to grow in the Pacific due to environmental constraints, including soil type, rainfall and terrain. Related: What's the oldest known recipe? Rice was originally domesticated in central China about 9,000 years ago and was spread by Neolithic farming communities as they migrated to new regions. One of the most remarkable of these expansions began in coastal southern China, moved to Taiwan, and spread through the islands of Southeast Asia into the Pacific. The migration laid the foundations of the Austronesian world, which today comprises nearly 400 million individuals dispersed across an expansive area stretching from Taiwan to New Zealand, and from Madagascar to Easter Island. For more than a decade, we searched for evidence of early rice in open archaeological sites across the Mariana Islands, but found nothing conclusive. This study marks the first clear evidence of ancient rice in the Pacific Islands. It also confirms renowned American linguist Robert Blust's hypothesis that the earliest Chamorros brought cultivated plants with them, including rice. Our research took us to Ritidian Beach Cave in Guam. To confirm what we found in the cave were rice remains, we used phytolith analysis. Phytoliths are microscopic silica structures formed in plant cells that persist long after the plant has decayed. Once our initial results confirmed the presence of rice, a more detailed analysis revealed we had found the traces of rice husks preserved on the surfaces of ancient earthenware pottery. Next, we used detailed microscopic analysis to figure out whether these husks had been mixed into the clay to keep it from cracking when it dried (a tempering technique commonly used by ancient potters) or had arrived by other means. We also analyzed the sediment to rule out that the husks were deposited at the site later than the pottery. Our findings showed the rice husks were not used for manufacturing the pottery. Rather, they came from a separate, deliberate activity using the finished pottery bowls. The setting of the discovery — a beach cave — gives us another interpretive perspective. In Chamorro traditions, caves are sacred places for important spiritual practices. According to records of 1521 through 1602, the Chamorro people in the Marianas grew rice in limited amounts and consumed it only sparingly, reserved for special occasions and critical life events, such as the impending death of a loved one. Rice became more common after the intensive Spanish colonial period, after 1668. In this context, the ancient islanders more likely used rice during ceremonial practices in or around caves, rather than as a staple food for daily cooking or agriculture. RELATED STORIES —140,000 year old bones of our ancient ancestors found on sea floor, revealing secrets of extinct human species —29,000-year-old remains of child unearthed in Thailand cave with 'symbols of blood and power' —Ancient people in Taiwan yanked healthy teeth from their mouths for 'aesthetic expression' and 'tests of courage,' study finds This study provides strong evidence that the first long-distance ocean crossings into the Pacific were not accidental. People carefully planned the voyages. Early seafarers brought with them not only the tools of survival but also their symbolic and culturally meaningful plants, such as rice. They were equipped, prepared and resolute, completing one of the most extraordinary voyages in the history of humanity. This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
