Science / Medicine : BURIED CITY OF CEREN : Archeology: Inundated by a volcanic eruption in 590, it yields rare glimpse of rural Mayans’ lifestyle.

The end of the village of Ceren came swiftly, violently and without warning.

On a warm evening in early June of AD 590, the villagers had just completed dinner. The sky was fading from the bright blue of the Salvadoran summer to the deep purple of the evening. Cooking fires had died down, but the dinner dishes had not been washed and the bed mats had not been unrolled.

Scattered groups may have chatted about the day’s events or gossiped about a forthcoming marriage or an impending birth.

Suddenly, without warning, the tranquil Rio Sucio, a river to the north, exploded in a burst of steam and ash that swept over the village at 60 to 100 m.p.h., knocking the villagers flat, scalding their skin and coating everything with 5 inches of fine, moist ash.

Struggling to their feet, injured villagers probably ran for the cooling river downstream, but a second eruption of 600-degree ash and sulfur dioxide caught them once more, igniting their clothes and the thatched roofs of the huts.

Even then, the volcano now known as Laguna Caldera was not finished. Eventually, it erupted 14 times, burying Ceren in more than 15 feet of ash, sealing it from the ravages of time and weather, protecting it from scavengers and grave robbers. Then it subsided, leaving a dormant cinder cone where once there had been a river.

Today, 1,400 years later, the village of Ceren is proving to be a treasure trove for American archeologists. For the first time, researchers are able to study the lives and everyday activities of the people who lived in Central America during the rule of the Mayans.

Most archeological expeditions in the region focus on the massive stone cities built and peopled by the Mayan aristocracy. But such sites provide only a hint of how the bulk of the population must have lived. Those edifices, furthermore, are frequently stripped clean by generations of scavengers, leaving only shards of pottery and weathered, disintegrating artwork to fuel the speculations of ethnographers.

But excavating Ceren is more like traveling into the past through H. G. Wells’ time machine. As the researchers sift through the layers of ash and dust, they encounter everything exactly as it was when the volcano exploded--down to such minute details as a duck tied up in a storehouse, finger swipes in food on an unwashed dinner plate and footprints in the garden.

“It’s a wonderful situation,” said archeologist Payson D. Sheets of the University of Colorado, who has led the excavations for the past two years. “The preservation at this site is far beyond what we are used to. . . . For the first time, we’ve got full, complete household inventories and a good picture of everyday life.”

The remains show that the rural Mayans were a prosperous people, and they also provide the first conclusive evidence about the staples of the rural diet and the architecture of homes. In addition, the findings reveal unexpected facets of early Mayan life, such as the fact that families “child-proofed” their houses.

“The great thing about Ceren is that there is such excellent preservation under the ash,” said UCLA archeologist Richard D. Hansen, an expert on Mayan society. “The fact that we have the chance to see all those remains so well preserved in a common household is unprecedented. It’s of profound importance for all of us working in (Central America).”

In fact, he added, “it’s a virtual Pompeii in every way,” referring to the Roman city that was entombed by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. But Pompeii was urban, while Ceren is rural.

“What you get,” added archeologist David Webster of Pennsylvania State University, “is an almost instantaneous archeological snapshot of what a household was like in AD 590. We are seeing something that most archeologists don’t deal with--places occupied by the common people who accounted for 80% to 90% of the population.”

The site was discovered in 1976 by a bulldozer operator who was excavating for the construction of grain silos at the village of Joya de Ceren, about 15 miles northwest of the city of San Salvador.

Cutting a swath through the volcanic ash, the bulldozer unexpectedly exposed one room of a dwelling.

Two years later, Sheets--who has been working in El Salvador since he was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969--was told about the house by local residents and decided to investigate.

He found shards of pottery and other apparently prehistoric materials and sent thatch from the roof to the University of Texas for carbon-dating. The result: the building dated from the year 590.

Excited by his find, Sheets and his colleagues used a technique called electrical resistivity to search for buried structures. Over the next two seasons, they sank pairs of electrical probes into the ground and measured the resistance between them. Because buried buildings have less electrical resistance than soil, they were able to find the buildings. They now know of 15 buildings and have “indications” of at least six more.

Because of guerrilla fighting, it was not until the summer of 1989 that the archeologists came to the site for a three-month dig. They returned in August, 1990, and stayed until January.

To date, the team has discovered communal living structures, storehouses, workshops, a kitchen, what is believed to be a village sweat house and a peculiar building that Sheets speculates may have been a religious shrine. The site has also yielded bean-filled pots, ornate polychrome bowls, woven grass mats, corn cribs, ceramic figurines, grinding stones and obsidian knives.

Foods discovered so far at the site include cacao (chocolate), fruit from tropical trees and a wide variety of seeds and berries. Researchers also have found deer, dogs, ducks, snails and the carcasses of birds knocked from the air by the eruption. They have not yet found evidence that the residents ate fish, but Sheets expects to because of the village’s proximity to the river, as well as a nearby lake.

The 1990 field work also revealed carefully cultivated household gardens containing manioc (cassava), corn, flowers and agave cactus, which is used to make rope and twine. Dental plaster injected into the hollow ash casts left by decomposed plants has allowed botanists to analyze the vein structure of leaves and identify crop and flower species.

Though they have discovered a broad variety of materials, archeologists have so far only partially excavated a little over an acre, while the ash covers more than 5,000 acres. “There’s much more here than could be done in my professional lifetime,” said Sheets, 47.

Two of the buildings are particularly intriguing. One is a 12-foot-square, earthen-domed structure with a central fireplace surrounded by an “elegant” rectangular adobe bench. It is the only structure uncovered so far with an adobe roof; that roof is protected from the weather by a second, thatched roof. The absence of pottery and food in the structure and evidence of very hot fires in the fireplace suggest that it may have been a community sauna much like the Mayans’ descendants still use today.

The suspected shrine is the most unusual building at the site, Sheets said. It is the only painted building, having a white coating on both the inside and the outside, and it is the only building with a window. The interior walls are painted with bright red murals--although the bulk of the murals have yet to be uncovered.

Furthermore, the interior of the building is divided into many small rooms, each with a different floor height, connected by doors of varying heights that make access difficult. All artifacts appeared to be “individually brought in and specially placed,” such as an ornate pot perched on four shells. Sheets believes that the artifacts are payment for services, and that the building was probably used by a shaman for curing ceremonies, predictions and so forth.

Researchers also began excavating a kitchen in 1990, the only circular building discovered so far. Used for grinding food and cooking grains, chilies and beans, the building was built with a thatched roof and thatched walls, apparently to allow smoke to dissipate more easily.

With the exception of the sweat house, the buildings typically had a 1- to 3-foot space between the top of the walls and the thatched roof to allow ventilation and light. Residents used the tops of the walls to store pots and other valuables, thereby keeping them out of the reach of children. They further “child-proofed” the houses by storing obsidian knives in the thatched roofs, Sheets said.

Last November, the researchers found their first evidence of a human body--a cavity halfway between the houses and the river, suggesting that one of the occupants was struck down while fleeing. Their inspection revealed three teeth that the team is now studying, but further remains will not be recovered from the cavity until the next expedition.

The most striking conclusion the researchers have reached so far is that the Mayans were a prosperous people for whom “life was very good,” Sheets said.

Current residents of the area enjoy no such prosperity. “The comparison is so powerful between the standards of life now and in the past. It’s markedly worse now.”

Modern life intrudes as well. To protect the site from vandals and looters, at least five soldiers stand guard at all times, armed with M-16 rifles and grenades--perhaps another sign that the Mayans of 590 had it better than those of today.

Buried city of Ceren

The site now known as Ceren was buried by the unexpected eruption of a volcano in June of A.D. 590. It is one of a very small number of Central American sites where household goods of Mayan peasants are preserved for study, and thus provides unprecedented insight into the life of peasants of that era.

OPERATION 1 1. The site was discovered when a bulldozer slashed through this communal building. 5. This building has a platform and ramada roof without walls. Obsidian wastage suggests it might have been a workshop for males. 6. Bodega for household 1. OPERATION 2 2. Communal building for household 2. 7. Bodega for household 2. 8. Very little of this building has been excavated yet. It may have been a kitchen. 9. Sweathouse. OPERATION 3 3. This adobe building has so far yielded no artifacts. Perhaps it had administrative or political function. OPERATION 4 4. Bodega, or storehouse, for household 4. OPERATION 5 10. This building, whose function has not been identified, will be excavated next summer. 11. Kitchen for household 1. 12. Religious building.