CAMPECHE, MEXICO—According to a Live Science report, while excavating a ball court near southeastern Mexico’s Maya city site of Ocomtún, archaeologist Ivan Šprajc of the Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies in Slovenia and his colleagues discovered a subterranean structure dated to the Early Classic period, between A.D. 200 and 600. “We located parts of an earlier building that had painted walls, but only further excavations may reveal the shape of that underlying building and what its function was,” Šprajc explained. He and his team discovered Ocomtún and several other sites in the Maya Lowlands during recent lidar surveys. Additional excavation in the area uncovered a plaza with a 52-foot-tall pyramid and a rectangular water reservoir. Ceramic vessels; a ceramic representation of an animal paw, perhaps of an armadillo; and a chert knife or spear point were found on top of the pyramid. These artifacts, which may have been deposited as offerings, have been dated to the Late Postclassic period, between about A.D. 1250 and 1524. “The offering indicates that, even after most of the Classic period Maya settlements had been abandoned, small and impoverished human group[s] were still rambling around, putting offerings on or near the buildings of their forebears,” Šprajc concluded. For more on Maya ball courts, go to "Play Ball!"
