**3. Conclusions**

*Updates in Volcanology – Transdisciplinary Nature of Volcano Science*

came back to the improvised stage, and took their bows.

local Salvadorans to the very real hazard along their volcanic vent.

materials and guides at the site, and on their own decided to put on performances reenacting aspects of life in the ancient village. The plays take place in August, when local farmers are engaged in the harvest of maize and manioc, just like the harvest in ancient times. The clothes made by their mothers are quite imaginative, resembling Native American costumes worn in US movies more than ancient Maya clothing, but nobody complains. The performances begin with life in the village before the eruption, with father talking about the harvest, and mother talking about processing the food in the kitchen, and the children saying they are hungry, and wanting attention. Then they go over to the community ceremonial building to unite with other families. But as the rituals were underway, giving thanks for a good harvest, and asking for a good growing season in the future, the ground started shaking. They said "is this a big one?" and waited anxiously until it attenuated. However, seconds later a horrific shrieking noise hit them, and they yelled in emergency as their oral history informed them that this is the beginning of a violent eruption. The sound came from the north, so they all ran as fast as they could to the south. The audience of the performance I witnessed was composed of many families in the town of Joya de Cerén, and they clapped exuberantly as the actors

The depictions of life in the village, the harvest ceremony, the earthquake, and the beginnings of the phreatomagmatic eruption were presented with great accuracy. The actors, and presumably their school teachers, had utilized our publications in Spanish, that were available on the internet. The presentation was strikingly reminiscent of how traditional native societies use oral history to accurately transmit detailed information about volcanic eruptions for centuries or millennia. Blong [11], for instance, discovered that the natives of Papua New Guinea retained detailed information about an eruption and tephra emplacements for about three centuries. That would be about 15 generations, and was achieved by frequent repetition in public performances. Krajick [12] notes the accuracy with which details of the Mount Mazama eruption was transmitted for about 7000 years. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the Cerén residents were familiar with the precursors, and the eruptions, along that active fault, and thus most if not all the participants in the ancient harvest ceremony headed south, fast. How many escaped alive is unknown, particularly because the time between the defining sound and the arrival of Unit 1 is unknown. Future excavations are likely to encounter the remains of some people who did not attend the ceremony because of illness, old age, or some other reason. More than a century of research remains to be done at the Cerén site. Native peoples around the world, for many millennia, have been dealing with extreme events. Lacking writing, they have initiated effective ways of transmitting traditional environmental-social knowledge for many generations [11, 12], by public performances and paying close attention to variations in nature and their societies. Such indigenous knowledge provides people with time-tested resilient behavior. Oral history of extreme events has an impressive record of durability and accuracy, and oral traditions of various geological events, including volcanism, can be incorporated into cultural aspects of everyday life, including performances, dance, and even tattooing [13, 14]. However, oral history is not invulnerable to massive disruptions. The last few centuries of colonization by the world powers, depopulation by epidemic diseases, massive migrations, or other factors can cause destruction to, or elimination of, traditional ecological knowledge [15–17]. The scientific literature on hazards, disasters, and suitable responses, is not an effective substitute for most peoples around the world. However, the high school students' reenactment of the Loma Caldera eruption, and the ancient Cerénians' perception of the precursors, and emergency evacuation of their village, do inadvertently train

**372**

Maya elites and royals are well known after two centuries of study, as they built their pyramids, palaces, and tombs of stone, and recorded their histories in hieroglyphics literally "written in stone." The created one of the world's great art styles, and their economic and political systems endured for many centuries. Commoners made up the vast majority of the population, but have been poorly known in part because they constructed their buildings of wattle-and-daub. They did not record their histories in written form, but in oral history form by repeated public performances, like so many traditional societies around the world. The frequency of eruptions along the fault indicates it is likely that people in the ancient Cerén village were well aware of the antecedents to an eruption were earthquake and a defining noise. No human remains have been found in excavations to date, and the footprints headed south, both indicate that people evacuated the village. How far they got is unknown.

The frequent reenactments of village life, eruption indicators, and the emergency evacuation by high school students both in the present-day town of Joya de Cerén, and the nearby city of San Juan Opico, are didactic means of training for families that could experience the next eruption, at any time. I encourage archeologists, volcanologists, and other scientists, to consider supporting similar performances by local students in other hazardous locations.
