Volcanoes and the Maya 
In A.D. 260, a catastrophic eruption drove the southeastern Maya from their lands 
in what is today El Salvador. A Pompeii-like site, buried by a smaller 
eruption three centuries later, tells the story of how the country was resettled 
by Payson D. Sheets 
The hazards of living in a volcanical- 
ly active area were dramatically illus- 
trated by the May 18, 1980, eruption of 
Mount St. Helens in Washington. The 
lateral blast killed dozens of people and 
destroyed 150 square miles of forest, 
while the ashfall disrupted agriculture 
and transportation hundreds of miles 
downwind. Less obvious than the dis- 
advantages of living in a volcanic area 
are the advantages, which include the 
fertile soils that develop as volcanic ash 
weathers. In fact, the agricultural pro- 
ductivity of the state of Washington 
owes much to the periodic eruption of 
the Cascade volcanoes during the past 
10,000 years. My recent archeological 
research in El Salvador has revealed a 
similar balance of risks and benefits for 
the southeastern Maya people, who 
lived along the volcanic axis of Central 
America. About a.d. 260, a massive ex- 
plosion buried these highlands in ash, 
forcing the Maya to abandon them for 
decades — up to two centuries in the 
worst hit areas. One small area in this 
region was struck by three additional 
eruptions in the years that followed. 
These various eruptions differed in 
terms of the size of the area devastated 
and the nature of the tephra (ash and 
other materials) blasted into the air, but 
in each instance people showed a dog- 
ged determination to reoccupy the 
lands affected, thereby reaping the 
benefits of volcanic activity. El Salva- 
dor’s volcanoes not only influenced the 
course of Maya civilization but also 
preserved, for archeologists, a very de- 
tailed record of prehistoric times. 
The earliest evidence of an agricul- 
tural people in El Salvador is a site dat- 
ing back to about 1200 B.C., although 
there were migratory hunter-gatherers 
in the area thousands of years before 
then. Excavations directed by Robert 
Sharer of the University of Pennsylva- 
nia have shown that this site, Chal- 
chuapa in western El Salvador, was 
first settled by people from the Pacific 
coastal plain of what is now Guatema- 
la. In addition to exploiting the fertile 
soils of the broad Chalchuapa Valley, 
these people regularly drew upon the 
massive obsidian outcrops at Ixtepe- 
que, a volcano thirty miles to the north- 
east. Raw or only roughly shaped 
pieces of volcanic glass were hauled 
into Chalchuapa, where conical “mac- 
rocores” from which flakes could be 
struck, as well as various cutting and 
scraping tools made from such flakes, 
were manufactured for domestic con- 
sumption and long-distance trade. The 
colony of Chalchuapa prospered and 
grew in size after it came under the di- 
rect cultural and economic influence of 
the Olmec civilization about 900 B.c. A 
major trade route ran from Chalchuapa 
along the Pacific coast of Guatemala 
and southern Mexico and into the Ol- 
mec heartland, centered on Mexico’s 
Gulf coast. Besides obsidian, numerous 
commodities — including jade, hema- 
tite, and perhaps perishables such as 
cotton, cacao, salt, and quetzal feath- 
ers — were traded along this route. 
By about the time of Christ, the re- 
gion of El Salvador was densely popu- 
lated, with more than 125 people per 
square mile. The bulk of the population 
were farmers, who cultivated both irri- 
gated and unirrigated fields. Corn and 
beans were probably the staples, sup- 
plemented by a variety of root and tree 
crops and a few wild plants and ani- 
mals. From what we know about paral- 
lel developments in other regions and 
the limited amount of direct archeo- 
logical evidence, we can conclude that 
Maya society in El Salvador was strati- 
fied, with an elite composed of affluent 
decision makers. In the towns, whose 
central areas were dominated by pyra- 
mids and plazas, a middle class of arti- 
sans and government functionaries was 
emerging. 
Some of the earliest Maya hiero- 
glyphic and calendric inscriptions are 
from El Salvador and adjacent south- 
ern Guatemala, showing that this was 
one of the most advanced Maya areas at 
the time. This progressiveness can be 
attributed, in part, to the highly fertile 
soil that had developed in the first mil- 
lennium B.c., a period of relative vol- 
canic quiescence. Previously deposited 
tephra had had time to “weather” — 
that is, to undergo physical and chemi- 
cal change through the process of plant 
growth and decay and the action of the 
elements. Agronomist Gerald Olson of 
Cornell University has discovered that 
when well weathered, this volcanic soil 
has an excellent capacity to retain mois- 
ture and is rich in organic matter and in 
the phosphates and nitrates important 
for seed crops such as maize. 
Jade was one of the principal trade 
items in Maya times. This chest 
ornament of the Late Classic period 
(A.D. 600-900) came from Nebaj in 
the Guatemalan highlands, not far 
from the jade source. 
32 
Lee Boltin 
