Evidence unearthed in the lowlands of Guatemala suggests that hunter-gatherers and the ancient Maya culture's less mobile settlers worked together during a transitional period that lasted for hundreds of years. The findings, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, challenge the view that mobile and sedentary cultures lived apart, and that public monuments are built only after a culture settles down.

"Our study presents the first relatively concrete evidence that mobile and sedentary people came together to build a ceremonial center," University of Arizona archaeologist Takeshi Inomata said in a news release.