Welcome to my perfumed garden

Yet more archaeology - more exciting discoveries about the Maya (they're coming thick and fast at the moment!). Proving a very fecund area for fics - should you need the juice :G:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/science/16maya.html

This time from my own old stamping ground, the Amazon.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4767717.stm

Now this is really exciting! For decades, the prevailing opinion was that major civilizations had never lived in Amazonia because living conditions made it too difficult. Current archaeologists working in the area now almost all discount this, theorizing that maybe as many as 80 million people inhabited the area in pre-Colombian times, living in thriving cities, now all gone after European introduced disease killed 95% or more of the population.
Aside from tribal tales and mythology, some areas with unusually rich soils, a lot of pottery and many old roads (found on satellite images), there's been very little material evidence - hence the excitement over this discovery!

But now I must get myself a beer and watch Doctor Who...

It's looking increasingly like the excavations at San Luis Potosi, may be of a wholly new, previously unknown culture, concurrent with the Olmec. O:! - That's old!
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-05-09T023915Z_01_N08215541_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-LIFE-MEXICO-DC.XML

http://www.slp.gob.mx/en/ver_noticia.cfm?id=3738
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.archaeology.mesoamerican/browse_thread/thread/c50fe641b059e820

Now I know I was right not to buy that ticket for lunch with Ben Murphy and save the cash for my Mexican trip!

Incidentally, if you read Spanish, there's fresh info at;
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/05/08/a02n1cul.php