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A big money of botanical bury at an ancientMayaball motor lodge in Mexico may have been placed there as part of a ritual , agree to a new report .
Archaeologists made the discovery while conducting fieldwork in what was once the ancient Maya metropolis of Yaxnohcah , on the Yucatán Peninsula . During excavations , they acknowledge a dark stain in the soil and hoard samples of it , the team report in the subject area , which was published Friday ( April 26 ) in thejournal PLOS One .
A limestone Maya panel found in Guatemala depicting ball players. A new study found that a Maya ball court in Mexico had an ancient ceremonial bundle of plants, some of them hallucinogenic.
Back in the research laboratory , researchers conducted an environmentalDNAanalysis of the land , using a method acting they developed that involves collecting specimen in sealable , cryogenic tubes and preserve the samples as they are transported from the field to the lab . To preserve the samples , the researchers applied a answer called RNAlater , which help oneself to bottle up bacterial emergence in the soil .
" It keeps the bacteria from eating DNA in there , " pass authorDavid Lentz , a prof of biological sciences at the University of Cincinnati , tell Live Science .
The analysis revealed that the grime was in reality the remnants of four types of plants , all of which have known " spiritual associations and medicative properties " and were often used by the Maya , according to a statement from the University of Cincinnati . The botanicals included a morning time glory known as xtabentun , which has hallucinogenic attribute , as well as Oxandra lanceolata and chile peppers . The plants were then wrapped in the leaves of the jool industrial plant — a vernacular step in Maya rite .
University of Cincinnati researchers in a rainforest near the ancient Maya city of Tikal.
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" For the Maya , chile peppers were more than just a condiment and were often used in rituals and had medicative applications programme , " Lentz said . " Xtabentun has interchangeable physiological effects as LSD , and we ’ve seen grounds of its use in a ceremonial setting . It turns out that this was a ceremonial bundle . "
Researchers think the Maya likely made a ceremonial offering during the ball court ’s expression . The Maya were known for play severalball games , sometimes calledpok - a - tok , in which thespian and even royalty would utilize their body , but not their hands or feet , to run into a rubber Lucille Ball .
But they also used the ball court for ceremonial purposes .
" Today we suppose of glob courts as a place for recreation , but the Maya also escort them as sacred , " Lentz said . " They would have order the sheaf while they were build the orb court as an offer to the gods to let them know that they were changing the landscape painting and to please sanctify it . This [ ritual ] cooccur with alike ceremonies we ’ve ground evidence of at other [ Maya ] sites . "
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Based on the psychoanalysis , the researchers fix that the ceremonial big bucks was placed at the site around A.D. 80 , Lentz order .
The researchers were impressed that trace of the plants endure nearly 2,000 geezerhood in a tropic clime . “For the bailiwick , we collect about 5 grams [ 0.2 ounce ] of soil , and in that , there were over 100,000 DNA episode , " Lentz said . " Of those , only 15 were from plant . It was pull a needle out of a rick . "
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