AUSTIN, TEXAS—Timothy Pugh of Queens College in New York announced at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology that his team had unearthed a 700-year-old council house, constructed with two colonnaded halls that stood side by side, at the Chaken Itza Maya site of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ in Guatemala. The building was outfitted with altars and incense burners, and was decorated with sculptures of reptiles, parrots, and turtles. “Basically almost every political and religious ritual would have been held there,” he told Live Science. The council house was eventually destroyed and covered with dirt sometime after 1500. “The Maya paid close attention to time and calendars. After a certain cycle of time they would move the ruling seat to a new location,” Pugh explained.