Correlating the Ancient Maya and Modern European Calendars with High-Precision AMS 14C Dating

• DOI: 10.1038/srep01597
• Publication Date: 2013-04-11T12:59:40Z
• Authors: Douglas J. Kennett; Irka Hajdas; Brendan J. Culleton; Soumaya Belmecheri; Simon Martin; Hector Neff; Jaime Awe; Heather V. Graham; Katherine H. Freeman; Lee Newsom; David L. Lentz; Flavio S. Anselmetti; Mark Robinson; Norbert Marwan; John Southon; David A. Hodell; Gerald H. Haug
• Keywords: Maya; Demise

The reasons for the development and collapse of Maya civilization remain controversial historical events carved on stone monuments throughout this region provide a remarkable source data about rise fall these complex polities. Use records depends correlating European calendars so that they can be compared with climate environmental datasets. Correlation constants vary up to 1000 years controversial. We report series high-resolution AMS 14C dates wooden lintel collected from Classic Period city Tikal bearing calendar dates. radiocarbon were calibrated using Bayesian statistical model indicate between AD 658-696. This strongly supports Goodman-Martínez-Thompson (GMT) correlation hypothesis change played an important role in demise civilization.