Archaeologists Found a Smoking Gun Behind the End of the Maya Kingdom’s Reign

By Tim Newcomb – Popular Mechanics

Archaeologists discovered clues to a fire in Guatemala from between 733 and 881 AD that they say represents a key turning point in Maya rule—a very public turning point.

The discovery at the Maya site of Ucanal in Guatemala “marked a public dismantling of an old regime”—a rather pivotal moment in the collapse of rulers and key point in political power that isn’t often shown so clearly from an archeological find, the authors write in a study published in the journal Antiquity.