Archaeologists have documented the remains of 96 small structures at Ake, a Maya city in Mexico’s Yucatán state, offering evidence that people continued to build homes and gather in its ruins after the city’s political collapse. The findings challenge the idea that Ake was simply abandoned when its political system broke down about 1,000 years ago.
A study by University of Virginia archaeologist Roberto Rosado-Ramírez, published in Latin American Antiquity, examines a community that occupied Ake’s former city center from about A.D. 1100 to 1550. At its height, around A.D. 900, the city may have housed 19,000 people. Drought, conflict, and violence contributed to regional political upheaval during the following centuries.
Surveys found 96 low mounds inside Ake’s walled center. The mounds supported houses made with wooden poles and thatched roofs. Excavations at or beside 17 mounds uncovered pottery dating from A.D. 1100 to 1550, while a dated refuse deposit placed activity between A.D. 1116 and 1218. The deposits showed no clear break in activity.
Structures reveal family life in a Maya city after collapse
At least 76 mounds were arranged around shared open areas in 12 patio groups, a layout associated with extended families. Researchers also recorded grinding stones, broken pottery, stone tools, spindle whorls, and animal bones. Those discoveries point to cooking, food preparation, weaving, and other household work.
Residents made use of what the earlier city left behind. Stones from large, deteriorating buildings were incorporated into the foundations of at least three-quarters of the smaller mounds. Families built on old plazas, roads, and collapsed structures rather than leaving the center untouched.
Religious activity continued alongside daily routines. Archaeologists identified five small shrine-like structures, including one containing pieces of ceramic incense burners and part of a carved monument dating to about A.D. 600. Other finds included pottery vessels, animal-shaped figurines and a burial placed within the rubble of older buildings.
Why Ake’s ruins drew residents before colonial rule
Earlier studies portrayed Ake as a pilgrimage destination. Rosado-Ramírez instead describes a resident community built around its ruins. Old stonework provided building material, while the former ceremonial center remained significant to residents. The study also considers how trees, animals, and changing vegetation became part of the inhabited landscape.
The settlement’s end appears linked to Spanish colonial rule, not the earlier political collapse. A document from 1567 may refer to Ake as an Indigenous community, but its absence from later colonial records raises the possibility that residents were forcibly moved elsewhere between 1567 and 1580.
Today, roughly 350 people live in Ake, where ancestral buildings remain part of local life. As Rosado-Ramírez wrote, “political collapse and ruination did not bring about abandonment.”
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