ArticleScience advances2023
Origins of Mesoamerican astronomy and calendar: Evidence from the Olmec and Maya regions.
Article in Science advances, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Landscape-wide cosmogram built by the early community of Aguada Fénix in southeastern Mesoamerica.Science advances · 2025Article
- Integrating remote datasets to identify precontact architecture and settlement patterns along the Wampu River system, Eastern Honduras.PloS one · 2025Article
- Using a Slit to Suppress Optical Aberrations in Laser Triangulation Sensors.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Archaeoastronomical studies have demonstrated that the important civic and ceremonial buildings in Mesoamerica were largely oriented to sunrises or sunsets on specific dates, but the origin and spread of orientation practices were not clear. Using aerial laser scanning (lidar) data, we analyzed orientations of a large number of ceremonial complexes in the area along the southern Gulf Coast, including many recently identified Formative sites dating to 1100 BCE to 250 CE. The distribution pattern of dates marked by solar alignments indicates their subsistence-related ritual significance. The orientations of complexes built between 1100 and 750 BCE, in particular, represent the earliest evidence of the use of the 260-day calendar, centuries earlier than its previously known use in textual records.
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Registered trials
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