Festivals sparked first Maya cities

Abstract

The great Central American jungle civilization of the Maya is renowned for its stepped pyramids, temples and great urban plazas, where human sacrifice may have been routine. But a surprising story is emerging from detailed examination of archaeological remains. One of the Maya's oldest known great cities, at Ceibal in Guatemala, began as a multicultural love-in. For the past decade, Takeshi Inomata of the University of Arizona in Tucson has been excavating the Ceibal site on the banks of the Pasion river, which once had some 10,000 inhabitants and sprawled over tens of square kilometers. His team's latest investigations reveal that the city's residential areas are much more recent than the first ceremonial pyramids and temples