Maya salt-making compound found preserved underwater in Belize
Sandee Oster
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Sadie Harley
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Robert Egan
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In a recent study by Dr. Heather McKillop and Dr. E. Cory Sills, a complete Late Classic Maya residential compound discovered preserved in mangrove peat below the sea floor of the Punta Ycacos Lagoon was analyzed. The work is in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica.
In modern Maya villages, there is typically a prevalence of pole and thatch architecture. However, such structures are highly perishable in archaeology and thus form part of the so-called "invisible sites."
In typical archaeological surveys, Maya architecture is identified via pedestrian surveys and airborne lidar technology. These are especially good at identifying mounds and residential plazas, which can then be used to create population estimates in the ancient Maya world.
However, these techniques typically capture recent Late Classic and Terminal Classic period architecture and are unable to record sites without mound and stone residential plazas, leading to those sites becoming "invisible."
Cho-ok Ayin was discovered during a flotation survey. The site was around 32 by 27 meters in size and contained 56 preserved hardwood posts and three palmetto-palm posts that barely protrude, if at all, from the peaty sea floor.
Similar preservation is not known from any other site on the Yucatan or Belize coasts, which was only possible due to the peat deposits wherein the wooden poles were placed, which led to an anaerobic environment unsuitable for bacteria responsible for decomposition.
Dr. McKillop elaborates, saying, "The preservation of the wooden buildings and wooden objects at the submerged Classic Maya sites in Punta Ycacos Lagoon has not been found elsewhere along the coasts of Belize and the Yucatan.
"The conditions for preservation are ideal along the southern Belize coast, where mangrove peat deposition is as much as 10 meters below the sea floor (due to sea level rise and the limestone platform of the offshore coast being much deeper than farther north in Belize)."
The mapping of these preserved posts revealed a typical Maya household group consisting of four buildings: building A, which served as the residential building; buildings B and C, which were likely salt kitchens; and building D, which may have been used in salt enrichment.
The site was built during the Late Classic period, around AD 550 to 800, and specialized in the production of salt.
This salt production began with the collection of saline-rich waters, which would then have undergone salt enrichment. This process typically involved pouring saline water through salt-rich sediment held in raised containers. Below these, a clay funnel would channel the enriched brine into collection pots.
Such clay funnels were recovered at Cho-ok Ayin both inside buildings and outdoors, indicating that brine enrichment was likely a frequent activity.
Once enriched, these waters were boiled in clay vessels over wood fires. As the water evaporated, the salt accumulated at the bottom of the pots. These were either left to harden in the pots before removal, or were filled into forms where they hardened. Once firm, the vessels were broken to extract the final product.
"Salt was either transported as loose salt in containers (baskets, pots) or hardened into salt cakes and transported in the clay pots, or the pots were broken and only the salt cakes were transported. Modern salt making in the highlands of Guatemala, such as at Sacapulas near a highland salt spring, has families boiling brine, hardening it in pots, breaking the pots, and transporting the salt as salt cakes. This is also practiced elsewhere in Mesoamerica and beyond," explains Dr. McKillop.
Despite its pole-and-thatch architecture, the inhabitants of Cho-ok Ayin were far from impoverished, having actively participated in regional trade networks, as evidenced by their access to Belize Red pottery from the upper Belize River valley, obsidian from highland Guatemala, and fine chert tools from northern Belize.
Conventional archaeological methods, which count mounds and raised platforms, would not have registered Cho-ok Ayin. Instead, it would have registered the site as having a population of zero, despite evidence of at least five inhabitants. This is true for all post-and-thatch buildings preserved within the Paynes Creek Salt Works. Such "invisible sites" provide an opportunity to address population size, material wealth, and household activities.
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More information: Heather McKillop et al, Ancient Maya submerged landscapes and invisible architecture at the Ch'ok Ayin residential household group, Belize, Ancient Mesoamerica (2025).
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