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The analyzed remains come from the archaeological sites of Mezraa Teleilat, Akarçay Tepe, and Tell Sabi Abyad, located in the area between Syria and Turkey.

Botanist and UC Associate Professor Eric Tepe said finding evidence of these plants together in the same tiny sediment sample is telling.

"I think the fact that these four plants which have a known cultural importance to the Maya were found in a concentrated sample tells us it was an intentional and purposeful collection under this platform," Tepe said.

In Anatolia, the monumental religious structures of Gobekli Tepe were built even earlier, at 9000 years B.C.E.

It was the swooping white canopy erected over the main excavation at Gobekli Tepe, a group of Neolithic structures up to 11,400 years old in southeastern Turkey.