Once again we have pinned down the 1159 BC date which coincides with
the Atlantean Subsidence.
Conjecture: Traders based on the coast established a new
civilization to replace the lost Atlantean civilization directly to
the East on the Cuban Arc. Other communities did the same and
generally took up lands previously ignored. Yucatan was one such.
Recall we have sunken pyramids at a depth of six thousand feet.
For now we have zeroed it in to 1159 BC which is joining other
prospective sites. After Atlantis sank, returning seamen would have
run for the nearest adjacent coastal trade factory. The same thing
happened with the Baltic tribes who headed for Mycenae. The Sea
Peoples were another such population that comes to history both
before and after.
Both Greece and the Maya are clearly post Alantean. Others must also exist such as the Philistines.
Oldest Maya Sun
Observatory Hints at Origin of Civilization
By Stephanie
Pappas,
The oldest ancient
Maya ceremonial compound ever discovered in the Central American
lowlands dates back 200 years before similar sites pop up elsewhere
in the region, archaeologists announced today (April 25). The
recently excavated plaza and pyramid would have likely served as a
solar observatory for rituals.
The finding at a site called Ceibal suggests that the origins of the Maya civilization are more complex than first believed. Archaeologists hotly debate whether the Maya — famous for their complex calendar system that spurred apocalypse rumors last year — developed independently or whether they were largely inspired by an earlier culture known as the Olmec. The new research suggests the answer is neither.
"This major
social change happened through interregional interactions," said
study researcher Takeshi Inomata, an anthropologist at
the University of Arizona. But it doesn't look like the Olmec
inspired the Maya, Inomata told reporters. Rather, the entire
region went through a cultural shift around 1000 B.C., with all
nearby cultures adopting similar architectural and ceremonial styles.
[See Images of the Ancient Maya Observatory]
"It's signaling
to us that the Maya were not receiving this sophisticated stuff 500
years later from somebody else, but much of the innovation we're
seeing out of the whole region may be coming out of Ceibal or a place
like Ceibal," said Walter Witschey, an anthropologist at
Longwood University in Virginia, who was not involved in the study.
Oldest ritual compound
The finding comes from
seven years of archaeological excavations at Ceibal, a site in
central Guatemala that was occupied continuously for 2,000 years.
Getting to Ceibal's origins was no small feat: The earliest buildings
were buried under 23 to 60 feet (7 to 18 meters) of sediment and
later construction, said study co-researcher Daniela Triadan, also a
University of Arizona anthropologist.
The earliest
structures recently discovered include a plaza with a western
building and an eastern platform, a pattern seen at later Maya sites
and also at the Olmec center of La Venta on the Gulf Coast of what is
now Mexico. The researchers used radiocarbon dating to peg the date
of construction to about 1000 B.C. This technique analyzes organic
materials for carbon-14, an isotope or variation of carbon that
decays predictably. As such, carbon-14 acts as a chemical clock
archaeologists can use to figure out how long something has been in
the ground. [In Photos: Amazing Ancient Ruins]
A construction date of
1000 B.C. makes the Ceibal structures about 200 years older than
those at La Venta, meaning the Olmec's construction practices
couldn't have inspired the Mayans, the researchers report Thursday
(April 25) in the journal Science. Instead, it appears that the
entire region underwent a shift around this time, with groups
adopting each other's architecture and rituals, modifying them and
inventing new additions.
"We are saying
there was this connection with various groups, but we are saying it
was probably not one directional influence," Inomata said.
There was an earlier
Olmec center, San Lorenzo, which declined around 1150 B.C.,
but residents there did not build these distinctive ceremonial
structures. By 850 B.C. or 800 B.C., the Maya at Ceibal had renovated
their platform into a pyramid, which they continued refining until it
reached a height of about 20 to 26 feet (6 to 8 m) by 700 B.C.
Starting
a civilization
This early phase of
Maya culture occurs before the group developed written language
and before any record of their elaborate calendar system, so
little is known about their beliefs, Inomata said. But the
pyramid-and-plaza area was almost certainly a space for rituals.
Among the artifacts found in the plaza are numerous greenstone axes,
which seem to have been put there as offerings.
The architecture
layout is what's known as a "group-E assemblage," said
Witschey. These assemblages appear all over the Maya world and worked
as solar observatories. From the western building, a view could stand
and look at the eastern platform or pyramid, which would have posts
at each end and at the center. On the summer solstice, the sunrise
would occur over the northernmost marker; on the spring and fall
equinoxes, it would be right over the center marker; and finally, on
the winter solstice, the sun would rise over the southernmost marker,
Witschey said.
well-developed idea
about what a village would look like," Triadan said. "The
transition from a mobile hunter-gatherer and horticultural lifestyle
to permanently settled agriculturalists was rapid."
It's not clear what
might have prompted the lowland Maya to give up their semi-settled
life for permanent villages and cities, Inomata said. One possibility
is that maize production became more efficient around 1000
B.C. The coastal Olmec people had long been able to grow maize
reasonably well, given fertile soil from rivers feeding into the Gulf
of Mexico. But the Maya lowlands were less wet and less fertile, with
fewer fish and fowl that the Olmec could have depended on to round
out their diets. If maize farming became more productive around
1000 B.C., however, it may have prompted the Maya to start staying
put.
"At that point,
it probably made sense to cut down many forest trees in the Maya
lowlands and then commit more strongly to an agricultural way of
life," Inomata said.
Members of the
research team are currently working on environmental analysis to try
to better understand the climate and weather of the area around the
time of settlement. What does seem clear, Inomata said, is that Maya
civilization didn't have to arise from an earlier, failing
civilization.
"This study is
not just a study about this specific civilization," he said. "We
also want to think about how human society changed and how human
society develops."
What the Maya findings
suggest is that a new civilization doesn't have to arise from the
dust of a previous one, but can happen through the interaction of
multiple groups trading ideas, Inomata said.
"What they're
reminding us is how much the jungle still hides, how much more there
is to learn and how complex a story of the evolution of this
civilization we really have on our hands," Witschey said.
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