Ancient sites in Mexico from nearly three millennia ago might offer the earliest evidence in the Americas of a formal calendar system that combined astronomical knowledge with earthly constructions.
Now, an airborne laser-mapping technique called light detection and ranging, or lidar, has revealeddating to between about 1100 B.C. and A.D. 250, say archaeologist Ivan Šprajc and colleagues.
Some of the oldest ceremonial centers identified by lidar clearly belong to the Olmec culture, but others are hard to classify, says archaeologist Stephen Houston of Brown University in Providence, R.I., who did not participate in the new study. Mobile groups in Mesoamerica, an ancient cultural region that extended from central Mexico to Central America, may have scheduled large, seasonal gatherings using the 260-day calendar long before it gained favor among Classic Maya kings, Šprajc and colleagues suggest. The same calendar may also have marked days of important agricultural activities or rituals as maize cultivation spread in Mesoamerica starting around 3,000 years ago, they add.
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