Friday, September 8, 2000

In a remote jungle of Guatemala, among the remains of a little-known ancient city with a name meaning Place of Serpents, archaeologists have uncovered one of the largest and most splendid palaces of Maya kings ever discovered. The 170 rooms are of the high ceiling type; were built around 11 courtyards--and spread over an area greater than two football fields. The leader of the discovery team, Dr. Arthur A. Demarest, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said "no one has found anything like this since the turn of the last century." The palace dates from the 8th century, A.D. Most of the palace is buried intact.
The Maya civilization was at the peak of its power in Central America and Mexico from 250 to 900, known as the classic period. The king who completed the palace (inscriptions give his name as Tah ak Chaan) ruled Cancuen for about 50 years, beginning in 740.

• Wednesday, June 21,2000
  GAINESVILLE,Florida-Scientists have confirmed that ancient bones found in Florida, are evidence of a previously unknown species of ground sloth; the oldest of its kind ever found in North America.  Massive herds of these gigantic sloths lumbered across the Florida peninsula 2.2 million years ago; munching on live oaks, magnolia trees and sweet gum--University of Florida paleontologist David Webb said.  With a height of up to 17 feet, and weighing five tons, Eremotherium eomigrans, as named in a recent academic journal article, was bigger than an African bull elephant. They utilized their enormous claws to strip leaves from branches up to 20 feet long, Web expressed, and entwined them in their long tongues.  The bones were found by a geology student in 1986, in a limestone quarry, west of Ginesville, Florida. Over many years, a dozen of the sloths skeletons, fully articulated, have been found, said Webb.  Webb further said that the giant sloths that lived in Florida, probably died out 50,000 years ago.