Yahoo TV

STORY: These artifacts are shedding new light on the Mayans

Location: Peten, Guatemala

The ceramic plaques reveal possible ties to an even earlier civilization

And date back to some 500 years before the Mayan classical peak

Carlos Morales-Aguilar/Ph.D. Archaeologist

“In 300 BC, when they reached their first peak, they already had quite complex urban planning, and had already solved — in some way — their whole subsistence system to sustain large numbers of people.”

Archaeologists say these objects point to links with the Olmecs

It's one of the earliest groups that lived in what became Mexico

Richard Hansen/Ph.D. Archaeologist

“The first inhabitants of the lowlands were looking at what the Olmecs were doing and the Olmecs were also aware of the Mayans and had some competition among them."