Ancient Mayans built pyramid partly from ash after catastrophic volcanic eruption

Akira Ichikawa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has found evidence of the Mayan return to part of Central America that was destroyed after a catastrophic volcanic eruption, much earlier than previously thought. In his article published on Cambridge University press to place Cambridge Core, he describes his study of the area around what was once the site of San Andrés in the Zapotitán Valley, in present-day El Salvador.

Previous research has shown that in AD 539, the Ilopango volcano erupted in an event now known as the Tierra Blanca Joven eruption, and this was a really significant event – the largest in Central America for the past 10,000 years and the largest on Earth for the past 10,000 years. the past 7,000 years. The explosion was so powerful that it covered the area around the volcano in waist-deep ash for 35 kilometers. It also collapsed, leaving behind a deep gash that is now a crater lake.

The eruption also had a huge impact on the Mayan civilization, sending it into a period of decline due to the loss of nearby settlements and cooler temperatures in the northern hemisphere. Due to the lack of evidence, historians have debated for years how quickly the Mayans returned to the region, with most suggesting that it probably took hundreds of years. In this new effort, Ichikawa describes evidence of the Mayan people returning to a site 40 miles west of the volcano between 30 and 80 years after the eruption. And not only did they come back; they built a great pyramid using ash and earth.

To learn more about what happened in the vicinity of the site, during the years 2015 to 2019, Ichikawa collected and analyzed samples of the soil and the Campana structure, a pyramid resting on a large platform. He found that work on the structure appears to have started about 30 years after the eruption, although it could have lasted up to 80 years.

Regardless, the data suggests that the Mayan people returned to the area quickly, early enough that some may have been survivors of the blast. Ichikawa suggests that it is likely that people built the pyramid as a way to appease the gods who had shown their anger by triggering the eruption.

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