The va’aki at Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park in Phoenix is more than 800 years old. Once a month volunteers come out to throw mud at the structure to stabilize it.
Archaeologists have unearthed tombs and ruins in Mexico dating back to Mesoamerica's Classic period, shedding new light on the funerary practices of the ancient Huastec people.
Maya, Mesoamerican Indians occupying a nearly continuous territory in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize. In the early 21st century some 30 Mayan languages were spoken by more than five million people, most of whom were bilingual in Spanish. Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Central America, the Maya possessed one of the greatest civilizations of the Western Hemisphere (see pre-Columbian civilizations: The earliest Maya civilization of the lowlands). They practiced agriculture, built great stone buildings and pyramid temples, worked gold and copper, and used a form of hieroglyphic writing that has now largely been deciphered. As early as