Pat gets a no-prize with a maize god on it for bringing us this NYT piece on the discovery of what could be an entire new "epoch" of Mayan civilization:

The intriguing finds, including art masterpieces and the earliest known Maya writing, are overturning old ideas of the Preclassic period. It was not a kind of dark age, as once thought, of a culture that emerged and bloomed in Classic times, at places like the spectacular royal ruin at Palenque beginning about A.D. 250 and extending to its mysterious collapse around 900.

Unfortunately there's not enough writing for them to even begin trying to decipher it, but it's hoped other digs in nearby sites will reveal more examples with which to work.