The connections between the deep pre-ceramic past and the sophisticated religious systems of historical Mesoamerica are a subject of ongoing inquiry.

What can be said is that the landscape Naia inhabited — the karst terrain, the cenotes, the underground water world — has been understood as a spiritually significant landscape by the peoples who have lived above it for as long as we have any evidence of their beliefs.

That understanding is part of the history of this place, and it is part of the context within which the discovery of Naia’s remains deserves to be understood.

The Black Hole, Now And Then