Cozumel Ruins Yield New View of Mayan Demise

The carved stone columns amidst the ruins of a Cozumel building at left are part of the finds uncovered by a joint Harvard-University of Arizona archaeological team this summer on the Mexican island.

The five-man team turned up over 200 buildings and temples dating from the period 1250-1450 A.D. when the Mayans inhabited Cozumel. More important, conclusions from their five-month expedition may change traditional explanations of the decline of the Classic Mayan civilization in Central America.

Jeremy A. Sabloff, assistant professor of Anthropology, explained Monday that articles found at the Cozumel site shed light on the Mayans' trade patterns in the period prior to their defeat by Cortez.

Sabloff maintains that the new information regarding the trade patterns--indicating the presence of foreign influences--will supplement previous studies which dealt only with Mayan religious and political structures, and the environment in which they lived.