The mystery of the Maya volcanic ash pottery

A series of Maya pottery items dating back to the Late Classic Period have long been the source of mystery among experts due to the materials from which they were made – large quantities of volcanic ash. The mystery lies in the fact that there are not any volcanoes in eastern Central America, nor have archaeologists found evidence the Maya mined ash locally.  A new study published in the journal Geology has now ruled out an enormous volcanic blast from afar as the source of the ash, but the final puzzle still remains to be solved.

Volcanic ash has long been known as the specific tempering agent, which was mixed with limestone, in the Late Classic Maya ceramics (600 – 900 AD). But how did relatively large volumes of volcanic ash become available for manufacturing of pottery? While it has been accepted that the ash was of non-local origin (the closest volcanic source is 350 km away), this anomaly has never been explained.  Were the Maya opportunists when a single eruption deposited ash in their midst to exploit over several centuries? Or did a sequence of ash falls concentrate in the Late Classic promoting new ceramic production strategies?