Maya Milestone: LSU researcher discovers first wooden ruins, unique artifact from Maya civilization
Team member Mark Robinson, a graduate student at Essex University in
the United Kingdom, taking underwater photos of a wooden post marked
by flags.
Wading through shallow waters off the southern coast of Belize, LSU Geography & Anthropology Associate Professor Heather McKillop and a group of graduate students and helpers peered intently at the lagoon floor. In a nearby boat, an ESPN outdoor show crew took a break from taping and looked on curiously.
Using their hands to wave away silt kicked up by their movement, McKillop and the students were inching forward, shoulder-to-shoulder, when one of them noticed something odd emerging from the muck.
After taking turns digging away the mud by hand, the group discovered the peculiar object was a long, wooden post, sharpened at the base. This unusual object was an interesting find by itself, but it was only the beginning.
What the group of archaeologists discovered was part of the only known surviving wooden structures of ancient Maya civilization. Soon, they would come across a long wooden paddle, more than a thousand years old and neatly preserved by the “peat bog” at the bottom of the lagoon.
Ultimately,
McKillop and her group would find hundreds of posts and other construction
wood, providing solid evidence of Maya structures that were once large,
salt-producing facilities. McKillop has detailed her discoveries, as well
as their importance and meaning, in a paper published in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences. Her finds sparked the interest
of the scientific community and led to grants from the National Science
Foundation and the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies
Inc., or FAMSI, which allowed her to search for additional wooden structure
sites in Belize this past summer.
The discoveries also sparked intense excitement in Belize, where Jaime Awe, director of the Belize Institute of Archaeology told a national television station that McKillop's find was "one of the great discoveries" in the history of Maya studies because it was "one of a kind."
The importance of the find was not lost on McKillop.
 LSU Geography & Anthrmarking the corner of a submerged Maya structure. |
“This marks a turning point in Maya studies, since never before have ancient Maya wooden buildings been discovered,” she said. “We have a wealth of information on stone architecture – the temples, palaces, and elite residences in ancient Maya cities, as well as the stone and earth foundations of the houses of the common Maya.”
McKillop added that her initial find “was totally unexpected.” In her 25 years of previous research, she said, she had discovered many underwater sites that were submerged by rising seas, but had never found wood preserved in a peat bog. In the tropical rainforest setting of most ancient Maya sites, wood structures are prone to decay. Indeed, she said, wooden objects have been recovered from only a few ancient Maya sites; in particular, those that had unusual environmental conditions, such as dry caves or dry temple rooms.
Supported by funding from an LSU Faculty Research grant, McKillop, the William G. Haag Professor of Archaeology at LSU, was in Belize researching Maya salt production in the country’s coastal region. She had previously discovered pieces of jars, bowls, and other materials used for salt production in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, where the posts and paddle were found. She was attempting to determine if the salt-production activity on the Caribbean coast would have been sufficient to provide salt supplies for the massive Maya cities deep within the Yucatan Peninsula.
The discovery of the new buildings and, in particular, the paddle, make it clear that the area was once a thriving zone of salt production that was largely swallowed up by rising seas during the last millennium. Initially, McKillop and her team had identified only four sites for salt production along the coast, but exploring beneath the water led to the discovery of more than 60 additional, submerged sites. Some 40 of these involve wooden structures.
An
ancient wooden Maya canoe paddle McKillop and her team found submerged
at the K'ak' Naab'site in Belize. Above
the paddle is an image of two Maya paddler gods using paddles similar
to the one that was found. The illustration is a copy of one discovered
on an artifact found at a site in Tikal, Guatemala. |
While researchers had previously suspected that the Maya had used canoes to move the salt produced along the coast to the interior cities, the paddle – which was radiocarbon dated to between 680-880 A.D. – represents the “first primary evidence of waterborne navigation of the ancient Maya,” said McKillop.
Indeed, images of Maya gods in canoes, holding paddles exactly like the one found by McKillop, have been found on carved bones in a temple of the Tikal Maya site.
While previous research has examined the economies of Maya cities and households, the discovery of the major salt-production facilities and delivery system represents a “new type” of Maya economy to be studied, McKillop said.
With help from her three-year National Science Foundation grant, McKillop and her team will map wooden structures, develop strategies for excavating selected structures, and begin dating more of the wooden material. On her most recent trip to Belize in June, she and her assistants and students began mapping out the sites, but also discovered more preserved structures.
 A close-up shot of the ancient Maya canoe paddle found underwater by McKillop and her team. |
“We found more evidence of wooden architecture – not just a few more wooden posts, but lots of them,” McKillop said. “We realized that there was a lot of buried material, some of which goes quite deep.”
She explained that the process her team used to map the sites is similar to archaeology techniques employed on dry land but much more time-consuming. The team of snorkeling archaeologists floated on rafts in the shoulder-to-shoulder formation, staring down into the water and planting tiny flags to indicate structure locations. Each post or beam was mapped using electronic survey equipment, in order to produce computerized maps of the buildings and sites.
“It’s slow work on land, but in water, it’s slower,” she said. “In water, you are out there for 10 to 12 hours a day, so you need lots of sunscreen.”
Contact Rob Anderson
| LSU University Relations
Highlights Team
Fall 2005
