Discovery at ancient site could upset everything we know about the Mayans

Mayans may not have been so dominated by city-state kings as previously believed.

Archaeologists have announced a change in their understanding of how the Maya people lived. New archaeological discoveries have revealed that the Mayan people may have enjoyed much more autonomy than previously believed and that rulers may not have been as powerful as assumed.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - A new discovery from a Mayan site in El Salvador has archaeologists questioning the conventional understanding of how the Mayans lived and organized their societies. Until now, archaeologists have believed that Mayans congregated in city-states, with satellite villages that supported them with agricultural tribute. Everyone under Mayan rule was governed by an absolute monarch and his constellation of aristocrats.  Everything was standardized.

This is the monolithic view of Mayan society, authoritarian, draconian, and rigid. Dominated by a bloodthirsty religion, the Mayan people must have lived short lives that were closely tied to agricultural bounty, strict ritual, and punctuated by occasional terror and warfare.

However, the discoveries at Ceren, a site known as the "Pompeii of the Americas," reveal a much different life than was expected. Archaeologists noted that the most striking surprise is the presence of small roads, or trails connecting fields which were widely varied in how they were managed. Between the primary fields used to grow yucca, and the city itself, people grew small patches of other widely varied crops.

This competes with the monolithic view of Mayan society and suggests a lot of fragmentation, individualism, and local control. It is possible that many of these locations were privately owned -they were certainly privately managed, as the variation in farming practices revealed.

RocĂ­o Herrera, a researcher with the Archaeology Department at El Salvador's Ministry of Culture told Latino Fox News, "We believe the elderly had an important vote about how certain decisions should be made, such as the construction of the road. But besides that, everything seems to indicate that they were not dominated by an elite authority."

Roberto Gallardo, a Salvadoran archaeologist told Fox, "[We see] the methods of seeding and the different ways owners of these plots of land were planting each crop. So we see differences in the agricultural order and also differences that suggest different owners on each plot."

Is it possible that Mayan civilization was much less authoritarian and centralized than previously believed? Recent discoveries suggest it's likely.