![]() ![]() The complexes weren’t cities with large residential areas but functional observatory sites that also likely served as gathering places for important communal events or observations, the authors note. ![]() Some sites, for example, seem to chart the seasonal extremes of Venus’ appearances as the “evening star,” which roughly bookend the region’s rainy season.Īn image made using lidar data shows the site of Buenavista on the day of sunrise alignment. Other intriguing connections appear to exist. were those aligned with sunrises on February 11 and October 29, two dates separated by the calendar’s full 260 days. The group analyzed the sites’ astronomical orientations on notable days of the 260-day calendar, including solstices and lunar cycles.Īmong the most common orientations found in the complexes dating to between 1100 to 750 B.C.E. Among them are the Olmec center of San Lorenzo, Mexico, and the recently discovered Aguada Fénix, on a Mexican ranch near the Guatemala border, which may be the biggest and oldest known Maya monumental complex. Computer software crunches the data to create high-resolution images of the earth’s surface and structures on it, even scrubbing away trees in digital deforestation, which has been used to reveal cities lost in the Amazon.īy combing through several sets of lidar data, Šprajc and colleagues identified 415 distinct ceremonial complexes dating from 1100 B.C.E. The resulting grid produces an enormous cloud of data points. As each beam strikes something on the earth’s surface, it bounces back to provide a measure of distance. Lidar systems use a grid of infrared beams, hundreds of thousands per second, shot downward from an aircraft. But aerial observation technology now allows archaeologists to uncover patterns of land use and ancient architecture. “It is obvious that the orientations reflect a complex worldview in which astronomical knowledge conditioned by practical concerns was intertwined with religious concepts,” says co-author Ivan Šprajc, who studies Mesoamerican archaeology and archaeoastronomy at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.įor centuries, many of these sprawling, time-worn sites were invisible in plain sight. These monumental assemblages of plazas, pyramids and platforms, some stretching more than half a mile, indicate the 260-day cycle was likely of central importance to the Olmec, Maya and other cultures since at least the key period of time around 1000 B.C.E.-when more widespread maize agriculture began to take hold in the region. The researchers behind the findings published their results in Science Advances on Friday. Since these cultures didn’t leave written records from earlier periods, scientists have found it exceedingly difficult to establish proof of prior calendar use-until this new large-scale discovery. But the earliest documented evidence for its use was a glyph depicting “7 Deer,” one of the days in the calendar, as part of a third-century B.C.E. Scientists had suspected that the calendar, which is tied to cycles of maize agriculture and human reproduction, dated back this far. Newly uncovered ruins along Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast appear to have been designed in alignment with the ancient timekeeping system.Īerial surveys using lidar technology revealed that hundreds of architectural complexes were aligned to facilitate timed observations of the rising and setting sun, moon and other celestial objects in line with this 260-day cycle. Now, fresh evidence suggests the practice dates back at least 3,000 years. In parts of Mesoamerica today, Indigenous communities use a 260-day ceremonial calendar. ![]()
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