Scientists recently discovered that Maya builders constructed a huge pyramid from rock that had been ejected from a volcano some 1,500 years ago. This eruption was so powerful that it chilled the entire planet.
In San Andrs (El Salvador), the Ilopango caldera erupted around 539 CE in what was then Central America's largest volcanic event in the past 10,000 years.
The Tierra Blanca Jovi (TBJ) eruption is known for producing lava flows that spanned dozens of miles and so much ash into Central America's atmosphere that it caused a cooling in the Northern Hemisphere. Researchers previously reported that this was the cause of the colder climate.
Scientists believed that the volcano's destructive powers had caused many Maya settlements to be abandoned. This could have been for hundreds of years.
Akira Ichikawa (a Mesoamerican archaeologist) and postdoctoral associate at the Department of Anthropology at UCB found that people built the monument in the area just decades after the eruption.
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A new analysis of the pyramid located approximately 25 miles (40 km) from the Zapotitn Valley volcano revealed that Maya builders mixed earth and cut stone blocks with blocks made from tephra rocks ejected from a volcano.
Ichikawa stated that this is the first evidence of volcanic ejecta being used in the construction a Maya pyramid. It could also reflect the spiritual significance volcanoes have in Maya culture.
For decades, scholars have debated the date for the eruption of TBJ. Some argue that it occurred between 270 and 405 CE. Ichikawa, in her new study published in Antiquity on September 21, wrote Ichikawa.
Ichikawa stated that radiocarbon dating, which compares radioactive carbon isotope ratios in tree trunks from El Salvador, suggested that 539 CE might have been a more accurate estimate.
The Campana pyramid is situated on a platform measuring nearly 20 feet (6 m), 262 feet (80m) long, 180 feet (55m) wide and 43 feet (13m) high.
3D Plan of Campana structure showing excavations. (Copyright Antiquity Publications Ltd/Courtesy A. Ichikawa).
It also features four terraces and a wide central staircase. It was the first building constructed in the San Andrs area of the valley after the TBJ eruption. This would have buried a lot of the valley below 2 feet (0.5 m) of ash according to the study.
Ichikawa used carbon samples from various building materials to calculate the age of the structure, dating them between 545 and 565. Ichikawa stated that this suggested that people had returned to the site and started construction on the pyramid much sooner than they expected.
Live Science received an email from him revealing that the amount of tephra found in the pyramid was also quite surprising. Payson Sheets, UCB archaeologist, discovered tephra in a Maya'sacbe' or 'white road' about a decade ago. This elevated thoroughfare was located at Joya de Cern.
Ichikawa said that Cern's prehistoric farming community is also located in El Salvador. It was buried by a volcanic eruption in around 600 CE.
Campana, however, is the first Maya monument to use tephra for construction. According to the study, Cern's sacbe contained white-ash tephra that "may have been perceivable to have powerful religious and cosmological meaning" due to its volcanic origin. Tephra could have had similar significance in the Campana pyramid.
Climate and environmental catastrophes like volcanic eruptions are often associated with the decline or collapse of ancient civilizations. In Ptolemaic Egypt (305-30 BCE), a volcano could have destroyed an ancient dynasty. Live Science reported that an Alaskan volcano that erupted 43 BCE may have signaled the end of the Roman Republic.
Ichikawa stated that the Campana structure is a different story. It shows that ancient people can rebuild from the ashes.
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Live Science originally published this article. You can read the original article here.
