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Global Volcanism Program | Image GVP-07400

An excavation at the Joya de Cerén archaeological site in the Zapotitán Valley shows pyroclastic surge deposits from the 590 CE eruption of the Laguna Caldera scoria cone against Mayan buildings. The excavation has unearthed several small Protoclassic Mayan homesteads that were buried by this eruption on the northern flank of San Salvador. They contain the remains of uneaten meals left by occupants who evacuated their houses. Photo by Giuseppina Kysar, 1999 (Smithsonian Institution).

An excavation at the Joya de Cerén archaeological site in the Zapotitán Valley shows pyroclastic surge deposits from the 590 CE eruption of the Laguna Caldera scoria cone against Mayan buildings. The excavation has unearthed several small Protoclassic Mayan homesteads that were buried by this eruption on the northern flank of San Salvador. They contain the remains of uneaten meals left by occupants who evacuated their houses.

Photo by Giuseppina Kysar, 1999 (Smithsonian Institution).

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Keywords: tephra | deposit | stratigraphy | outcrop | human impacts


San Salvador