Overview
- An international team led by Milan Kováč discovered Los Abuelos, a Maya site dating to around 900 BCE in Guatemala’s Petén region
- The site covers roughly 16 square kilometers near Uaxactún, situated about 40 kilometers north of the UNESCO World Heritage site Tikal
- Archaeologists uncovered an ancient observatory alongside multiple pyramids, altars, stelae fragments and intentionally broken ceramics
- Two 1.5-meter anthropomorphic stone sculptures of a man and woman from 600–400 BCE highlight ancestor veneration traditions
- Los Abuelos served as a ritual hub for about a millennium before its abandonment and reuse around 800 CE, and related digs at Petnal and Cambrayal yielded a 33-meter pyramid and other ceremonial structures