Marco Gonzalez Maya Site

No pyramids here. Near the southern tip of Ambergris Caye, about 8 km south of San Pedro, at least 49 low platforms and walls stand on ground built up by two thousand years of broken pottery, conch shell and household rubbish, none more than about 4 metres high. The people fished, later boiled salt, and traded for jade, obsidian, flint and pottery clay that the island lacks. They lived here from roughly 2,100 years ago until about 1500, busiest between 1200 and 1400, and rising seas and creeping mangrove swamp probably drove them out.

Potsherds, conch shells and chert tools still litter the ground, along with plenty of looters' holes. Getting in is the catch: the site sits in thick jungle ringed by mangrove, the trails are overgrown, it is especially hard going during and just after the rainy season, and few people visit.