The wet volcanic ash that covered a
Maya village in Central America in about AD 595 coated and preserved everyday
objects beans, chilies, rope, gourds, even unwashed dishes -- just as they had
been left, giving archaeologists a rare chance to learn about the everyday lives
of the people of this pre-Columbian village. Exploration of the site, which is
located in E1 Salvador and has been given the name Joya de Ceren, is now in its
eighth season, and archaeologists are continuing to make new finds.
The volcanic eruption that entombed Ceren more than 1,400 years ago began
when lava pushed its way close enough to the surface to create a great explosion
of steam and. ash that was centered just north of the village. The
archaeologists have not found the remains of any human beings killed by the
eruption in Ceren, suggesting that they had enough warning to flee. The eruption
buried Ceren in a layer of ash 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) deep over a period of a
few days.
One of the most striking of the conclusions drawn from
the Ceren site is that the people of this ancient village lived more comfortably
than average Salvadorans do today. Ceren’s architecture, crafts, and agriculture
were surprisingly sophisticated and varied. They ate a rich variety of foods,
had spacious, well-ventilated living and working quarters, and lavishly
decorated many of their ceramic items. Yet Caren was an average farming village,
not a seat of the ruling class or a regional center of commerce, archaeologists
said.
The village of Ceren was rediscovered in 1976 when a
bulldozer operator knocked into the wall of one of the structures. Grasses that
made up the thatched roof of the dwelling were still preserved, leading an
archaeologist to conclude that the structure was recent. After two years,
anthropologist Payson D. Sheets of the University of Colorado at Boulder
discovered the antiquity of the structures when he dated a sample of thatch to
about 1,400 years ago.
Sheets was able to survey the site for
only a few years before the civil war in El Salvador made it too dangerous to
continue. The archaeologists left the site, located northwest of San Salvador,
the capital, in 1980 and did not return until 1989. Since then, archaeologists
led by Sheets have returned each year.
As of spring 1997, they
had digged 12 buildings, including a community hall, living quarters, kitchens,
storerooms, a religious hall, a sauna, and even a small building believed to be
the workplace of a shaman (a priest who uses magic). The smallest objects of
daily life were preserved, sometimes as actual organic matter such as seeds or
stems, sometimes as impressions in the ash such as that of a cornstalk or a
squash. By sending radar signals through the ground in order to detect buried
objects, archaeologists in I994 located 22 additional structures still buried in
ash.
Archaeologists at the site have found the remains of
animals including dogs, deer, and a duck tied to a pole. All that remains of the
people of Ceren, however, are their footprints, and a few teeth, believed to
have been tossed on a roof for good luck. When the teeth were found, workers
told Sheets that throwing teeth on the roof is a tradition still practiced by
some people in rural El Salvador today. |
