In 1976, bulldozers leveling the ground for a government agricultural project in Cerén, El Salvador, uncovered a shocking find: A 1400-year-old Mayan village was frozen in time beneath a blanket of ash.
The village was almost perfectly preserved—researchers can still see the marks of finger swipes in ceramic bowls, along with footprints in gardens that contain ash moldings of corn stalks. This preservation was all thanks to an eruption in 660 CE, when the nearby Loma Caldera volcano drenched Cerén (and possibly other yet undiscovered villages in a two square mile radius) with toxic gas, ash, and lava.
This means that Cerén is a completely unique gift, because it gives archaeologists a pristine window through which they can view the daily life of the ancient Mayans—much like Pompeii and ancient Romans.
However, unlike Pompeii—which, upon its discovery, lured countless Europeans, who dug through the ash to steal away items like statues for their private collections, thereby destroying an enormous amount of archaeological evidence—Cerén was perfectly untouched until it was excavated. Moreover, no human remains have been recovered in Cerén—indicating, perhaps, that the entire village fled to safety.
Thanks to its pristine condition, archaeologists have now discovered that significant interactions at Cerén took place among the families, elders, craftspeople, and specialty maintenance workers who comprised the 200-person village.
The researchers made one particularly unexpected discovery concerning regional interactions: “A centuries-long research focus on [Mayan] elites has understandably fostered the view that they controlled the economy, politics, and religion of Maya civilization,” wrote the authors in the journal Latin American Antiquity. But those living in Cerén appear to have had free reign in regards to their architecture, crop selections, religious activities, and economics—a contrast to what most records implied.
“This is the first clear window anyone has had on the daily activities and the quality of life of Maya commoners back then,” said University of Colorado Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered Cerén and has been excavating it, in a statement. “At Ceren we found virtually no influence and certainly no control by the elites.”
So far, the 10-acre village has revealed 12 buildings: living quarters, storehouses, workshops, kitchens, religious buildings, and a community sauna. Researchers have also uncovered imprints of thatched roofs, woven blankets, and bean-filled pots, along with craft items like jade axes, obsidian knives, and what are known as polychrome pots. None of these items were produced in the village, meaning the Ceren people were active in local trade.
“The Ceren people could have chosen to do business at about a dozen different marketplaces in the region,” said Sheets. “If they thought the elites were charging too much at one marketplace, they were free to vote with their feet and go to another.”
Footprints could indicate fleeing from eruption
It appears they also “voted with their feet” when the volcano began erupted—because a recently discovered road from through village, known as a sacbe (pronounced “sock bay”) has preserved footprints of those likely fleeing the village.
The sacbe is made of white volcanic ash and roughly six feet wide, with two drainage ditches running alongside. The center of the sacbe was incredibly hard, indicating they used heavy objects like tree trunks to compress it down. However, a groove running through the center indicates those walking on the roads to tend fields went single-file.
The outer edges are soft, though, and there the researchers have found several dozen footprints. “More than half of the footprints were headed south away from the village, away from the danger,” Sheets said. “I think at least some of them were left by people fleeing the eruption.”
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Feature Image: University of Colorado
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