In ancient Mesoamerica, ball games weren't just for fun. The classic game, which involved a hard rubber ball and helmeted players on a rectangular field, had serious ritual and political goals-or at least that has been the conventional wisdom among archaeologists. But David Anderson of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, put a new twist on this story: He argued at the meeting that the ball courts found throughout Mesoamerica likely began as a communal game and only later were co-opted by elites who used them for their own ends.
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