A Ball Court Is Built at Paso de la Amada

Archaeological excavations at Paso de la Amada in the Soconusco coastal region of modern Chiapas have documented the oldest surviving formal ballcourt yet discovered in the Americas, dated to about 1400 BCE in uncalibrated radiocarbon years, or roughly 1650 BCE in calendar years. The construction of this earthen arena firmly anchors organized team athletics to the Mesoamerican Early Formative era. Rather than an improvised field with perishable boundaries, the Paso de la Amada site features an intentional, demarcated playing alley flanked by lateral structures, establishing a architectural layout that endured across multiple indigenous civilizations for well over two millennia.

The emergence of formal architecture coincides with broader regional evidence for the exploitation of natural latex. Although Paso de la Amada preserves the oldest confirmed playing court, the use of rubber at roughly the same time is attested across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the Olmec cultural sphere. At the sacred bog of El Manatí, archaeologists uncovered preserved rubber balls deposited in a freshwater spring alongside ritual offerings, the oldest of which Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History dates to about 3,600 years ago. While these votive deposits cannot be conclusively identified as game equipment, they demonstrate that the elastic material necessary for the sport was already being processed and treated with ritual reverence.