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The discovery of rubber balls at El Manatí on the Gulf Coast of Mexico provides some of the earliest evidence for the game. The first ballcourt is discovered at Paso de la Amada in Guatemala, a site associated with the Olmec culture. Ballplayer figurines and iconography are associated with the Olmec civilization. Evidence for the ballgame appears throughout the Mesoamerican archaeological record.
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Ballcourts and ballgame imagery drastically increase across the Maya area and Gulf Coast cultures during this period. The ballgame's religious and ceremonial significance grows, with ballcourts representing the cosmos, and games potentially enacting myths, the journey of the sun, or resolving disputes.
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The game remains important for cultures like the Mixtec and Aztec in southern and central Mexico. The Aztecs called the game ōllamaliztli. It was a noble game often accompanied by heavy betting, with its circular stone courts featuring vertical stone rings for a score. In Aztec times, the game was tied to the equinoxes and could be accompanied by human sacrifice, with the losing team sometimes publicly decapitated.
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Ulama: A modern, less gruesome version of the ballgame, called ulama, is still played in some isolated regions of Mexico.