Maya commoners of their Classic Period -- "illiterate farmers, builders and servants" -- preserved their history by burying their old possesions in the floors of newly built homes.
In a custom called "termination," they razed and burned their homes before placing household items, and sometimes corpses, on the heap of wreckage, which then became the foundation of a new home. These terminations are thought to have taken place at the end of each several-decades-long calendar cycle.
