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[link to news.illinois.edu (secure)]

CENTRAL BELIZE – We stand in the open fields of Spanish Lookout, a modernized Mennonite farming community in Central Belize, looking at what remains of ancestral Maya homes after years of plowing. White mounds, the remnants of these houses, pock the landscape as far as the eye can see, a stark reminder of what existed more than 1,000 years ago. The collapsed buildings look like smudges on an aerial photograph, but as archaeologists, we get to see them up close. With enough excavation and interpretation, we can eventually make sense of how these dwellings functioned in the deep human past.

One of the buildings here is a particular puzzle. The ancestral Maya constructed it using uniform stones and white limestone plaster, something quite different from your average Maya farmstead. We found few artifacts and pristine construction fills, the latter usually stock full of artifacts in a typical Maya household. We think we found some type of community building, perhaps for community events or ceremonies, similar to a modern church or recreation center where everyone was welcome.

We also partially exposed a substantial platform mound that had four structures at its summit. The structures surrounded a plaza or courtyard. It is clear that an elite family lived here. This mound would have been secluded, sectioned off from the rest of the neighborhood, like the large house at the end of a cul-de-sac where, if you were lucky, you got invited for a pool party, much different from the community building.

 
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