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important chapter in the evolution of Maya society, said Sheets, who has spent years studying llopango and its effects.
In its heyday the Maya civilization was a network of populous cities graced by soaring pyramid-temples, stretching from the mountains and rain forests of Guatemala north to the parched plain of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The Maya are known for brilliant art styles, a sophisticated astronomy system that used five calendars, and the most complex writing system in the New World.
The house at the Ceren site had a floor laid of wet clay and fired like one big brick. Upright posts supported the thatched roof, and the internal partition walls were covered with wattle and daub—features found nearly intact.
In what must have been the family’s pantry, the crew found four pottery vessels, two still containing beans. Other rooms of the house also were devoted to tasks traditionally performed by Maya women, one a weaving area and another a pottery working room, complete with a lump of potter’s clay, » flake of stone used to smooth the clay. >nd a piece of iron ore for coloring the pots.
For Sheets, the potterymaking operation poses a question: Did the family make it for its own use or to sell to others? The answer might shed light on whether Maya families were selfsufficient or depended on each other for life’s necessities.
About 30 feet from the house the crew found what was probably the place where the men of the house spent much of their time when not in the fields—an open-air work platform that yielded evidence of tools made of obsidian, a volcanic glass. Tool making. Sheets says, was generally a male activity in Maya society.
Near the end of the digging season, the researchers made to test pits just south of the house. In one pit. Sheets said, they made the “extraordinary discovery” of the corn plants, growing on low ridges. Based on their height and the Salvadoran growing season. Sheets concluded that the fatal eruption must have come in late May or early June.
“So we have the archeological irony of knowing
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