Soil Geochemical Signatures of Marketplace Activities at the Maya Site of Cobá, Mexico.

The central plaza at Cobá, Mexico, might have been the place of Classic Maya marketplace activity for a long period of time. The intense decomposition in the warm, moist soils of the Yucatan Peninsula precludes the identification of perishable artifacts and organic biomarkers in archaeological contexts, but minerals like phosphorus, iron and other heavy metals accumulate in the soil and may provide evidence of marketplace activities.   The plaza of Coba will be surveyed to identify platforms and rock alignment related to the marketplace.  The geochemical distribution of soil chemical residues of ancient human activities across the plaza will be presented.