Excavations have uncovered about 70 buildings since the site’s 1976 discovery, all of which give us remarkable insight into day-to-day life and Mayan civilization in the late 6 th century. The inhabitants fled, but they left behind utensils, ceramics, furniture and even half-eaten food when they escaped the town.
Much like its ancient Roman counterpart in Italy, this Mayan farming village was covered in volcanic ash when the nearby Loma Caldera erupted, dumping between 4 and 8 feet of ash over the town. Popularly known as the “Pompeii of the Americas,” Joya de Ceren is remarkably well preserved. Photo by: International Expeditions / Jim O’Donnell The causeways, which are paved, are a particular testament to the skill of the people that built them. Spanning 25 hectares, the site has 3 large complexes, with a total of 15 platforms and many plazas, retaining walls and causeways. Glass beads at the site indicate the Indigenous peoples may have traded with the Spaniards. Las Mercedes was inhabited from around 1500 BC until 1500 AD, when the Spanish arrived. The site has been excavated several times, although the earliest “excavations” were unscientific and many artifacts were removed. Associated with the Huetar, a Chibchan-speaking people, Las Mercedes was rediscovered in the late 19 th century, when a railway connecting the capital city to Puerto Limon was built. Las Mercedes was an important political center for the Indigenous peoples of Costa Rica. The largest building at the site is Caana, the Sky Palace the ruin is, in fact, one of the largest buildings in Belize.
When Europeans arrived, the site had already been disused for 500 years. Caracol weathered the initial collapse of the Mayan empire, but was fully abandoned by 1050. Caracol was a dense city, with approximately 270 structures per square kilometer, which is denser than Tikal at its height. The site was rediscovered in 1937 and archaeological work has been ongoing since 1985. The complex was larger than Belize’s capital city today and supported a population twice as large. Long thought to be a relatively unimportant Mayan city, Caracol has revealed itself to be one of the most influential political centers in the Maya Lowlands during the Classical Period of the Mayan civilization. A great way to begin learning about these ancient cultures is to visit 1 of these 7 sites if you’re lucky, you’ll get to meet some of the descendants of these amazing builders. Today, the ruins of cities built by the Mayans, Toltecs, Zapotecs and others serve as a testament to their civilizations, and many of them are preserved as World Heritage Sites scattered throughout the countries of Central America.
For the record: The first advanced civilization existed in Southern Africa.Many of the peoples of Central America were prolific builders and empire-makers when the Spanish arrived in the 16 th century, they found bustling metropolises and impressive monuments. Unfortunately, theorists and historians still have no desire to let go of their previous postulations. The ancient cities in Maputo not only validate but match the time periods documented by the Sumerians. “Archeologists don’t want to deal with, or acknowledge these time periods,” said Tellinger. Potentially it’s the collective hubris of theorists, wanting their theories of historical civilizations to remain valid.ĭespite the Sumerian tablets of the kings list, which detail a list of kings spanning over a 224,000 time period 10 of which are kings documented to have existed before the biblical flood. Rather painfully he still hasn’t received formal acclaim or support for this discovery. Michelle Tellinger has reportedly received many phone calls from archeologists and scientists commending him on his work. “The photographs, artifacts and evidence we accumulated, point towards a lost civilization that has never before been and precedes all others- not for a few hundred years, or a few thousand years … but many thousands of years,” Tellinger said.