Nature 260, 579 - 581 (15 April 1976); doi:10.1038/260579a0

Radiocarbon chronology for early Maya occupation at Cuello, Belize

Norman Hammond^*, Duncan Pring^†, Rainer Berger^‡, V. R. Switsur^§ & A. P. Ward^§

^*School of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK
^†Institute of Archaeology, University of London, 31−34 Gordon Square, London WC1, UK
^‡Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, 90024
^§Radiocarbon Dating Research Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK

Radiocarbon dates from excavations at the prehistoric Maya site of Cuello, Belize, indicate occupation around 2600 BC in calendar years, antedating the hitherto earliest known occupation of the Yucatan Peninsula by some 1,700 yr and demonstrating that sedentary pottery-using communities in the Maya lowlands may be as early as any in Mesoamerica.

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