Looking for help with today's NYT Mini Crossword puzzle? Here are some hints and answers for the puzzle.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes. It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future. Recommended Videos Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis. On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads. “Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.” Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”. Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said. Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service. The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says. But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.

The xAI merger capped a yearslong turnaround effort for the social-media company.

Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga lead Cameron Mackintosh’s song-stuffed revue of the Broadway composer’s legendary career, stretching from ‘Gypsy’ to ‘Sweeney Todd’ to ‘Passion.’

What's the deal? Twitch makes deal to escape Elon Musk suit alleging X ad boycott conspiracy Twitch must meet certain conditions by the end of the year to get dismissal. Ashley Belanger – Apr 8, 2025 2:56 pm | 42 Credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket Credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Twitch has struck a deal with Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) to eject itself from a lawsuit over an ad boycott shortly following Musk's takeover of Twitter in October 2022. In a court filing Monday, X lawyers provided no details on the deal but explained that "X and Twitch have entered into a memorandum of understanding resolving the action as to Twitch," so long as "certain conditions" are met by December 31. Musk has called for "criminal prosecution" of anyone involved in the ad boycott. But while Twitch was one of about a dozen companies that X directly accused of conspiring to withhold billions in ad revenue from then-Twitter, it was not part of X's initial complaint. The livestreaming service was only added to the lawsuit after X amended its complaint in November to pull in more advertisers, and since then, Twitch has never responded to any of X's accusations. Instead, in its filing, X speaks for Twitch. "X and Twitch contemplate filing a status report or a notice of dismissal as to Twitch on or around January 10, 2026," X's filing said. "Accordingly, X and Twitch—which has not yet appeared in this lawsuit but whose counsel have authorized the undersigned to represent that their client supports this request—ask this Court to stay the case as to Twitch only pending such a filing." X may not count Twitch among the worst ad boycotters X's beef is primarily with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which had previously set brand safety standards that advertisers typically adhered to in order to avoid having their ads appear next to objectionable content online. X has claimed that boycotters followed WFA's direction to boycott X, despite knowing that doing so could hurt their business (by losing out on advertising on the social media platform where X claims it's easier to reach key demographics). But X did not claim that Twitch was among these perhaps worst offenders that X accused of boycotting X simply to deprive it of core revenue. Instead, it appears that X decided to sue Twitch after discovering that Twitch was among advertisers who directly referenced the WFA's brand safety guidelines in its own community guidelines and terms of service. X likely saw this as evidence that Twitch was allegedly conspiring with the WFA to restrict then-Twitter's ad revenue, since X alleged that Twitch reduced ad purchases to "only a de minimis amount outside the United States, after November 2022," X's complaint said. "The Advertiser Defendants and other GARM-member advertisers acted in parallel to discontinue their purchases of advertising from Twitter, in a marked departure from their prior pattern of purchases," X's complaint said. Now, it seems that X has agreed to drop Twitch from the suit, perhaps partly because the complaint X had about Twitch adhering to WFA brand safety standards is defused since the WFA disbanded the ad industry arm that set those standards. Unilever struck a similar deal to wriggle out of the litigation, Reuters noted, and remained similarly quiet on the terms, only saying that the brand remained "committed to meeting our responsibility standards to ensure the safety and performance of our brands on the platform." But other advertisers, including Colgate, CVS, LEGO, Mars, Pinterest, Shell, and Tyson Foods, so far have not. For Twitch, its deal seems to clearly take a target off its back at a time when some advertisers are reportedly returning to X to stay out of Musk's crosshairs. Getting out now could spare substantial costs as the lawsuit drags on, even though X CEO Linda Yaccarino declared the ad boycott was over in January. X is still $12 billion in debt, X claimed, after Musk's xAI bought X last month. External data in January seemed to suggest many big brands were still hesitant to return to the platform, despite Musk's apparent legal strong-arming and political influence in the Trump administration. Ars could not immediately reach Twitch or X for comment. But the court docket showed that Twitch was up against a deadline to respond to the lawsuit by mid-May, which likely increased pressure to reach an agreement before Twitch was forced to invest in raising a defense. Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 42 Comments

Reconstruction of North America roughly 66 million years agoDavide Bonadonna Dinosaurs likely weren’t declining before an asteroid wiped them all out; instead, there may just be limited fossils from that time period, according to a new study. It has been hotly debated whether dinosaur populations were thriving or dwindling when a huge asteroid slammed into the planet about 66 million years ago. Specifically, a drop in the availability of dinosaur fossils from the years leading up to the asteroid has led some scientists to believe the giants were doomed regardless of the impact. Advertisement Christopher Dean at University College London and his team analysed a dataset of more than 8000 fossils from four types of dinosaurs that lived between 84 million and 66 million years ago in North America, including the famed Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops. They found many fossils of dinosaurs from 84 million to 75 million years ago – and then that number drops in the following 9 million years leading up to the Chicxulub impact. But there was more. When calculating how much land is currently accessible to palaeontologists from the years leading up to the asteroid’s impact and how many excavation expeditions have been undertaken in those areas, Dean’s team found there simply aren’t many of the right rocks available for today’s scientists to study. Because palaeontologists look for fossils in ancient layers of Earth’s crust that have since been exposed to the surface, it is like working on “a puzzle where half the pieces are missing,” says Dean. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month. Sign up to newsletter When the team used ecological models to estimate the plausible number of dinosaurs in those areas — including information about the geology and geography at the time — their calculations suggested that overall dinosaur numbers stayed stable before the asteroid impact. There weren’t fewer dinosaurs at the time; we are just less likely to find them, says Dean: “It looks like our ability to detect dinosaurs is influencing the patterns that we see in the fossil records more than anything else.” This adds to the growing body of research suggesting there is a bias in how many fossils palaeontologists can access from North America in the 9 million years leading up to the asteroid hit, according to Manabu Sakamoto from Reading University in the UK, who was not involved in the study. Yet, he says, this doesn’t change the bigger picture of dinosaurs being in decline before the asteroid hit. Even if dinosaurs were still populous and dominant towards the end of the Cretaceous period, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of variation in their species. Sakamoto’s research suggests that, during the 175 million years dinosaurs roamed Earth, the rate at which new species of dinosaurs appeared was slowing down overall, leading to more dinosaur species going extinct than new ones evolving. This long-term decline in dinosaur diversity still holds true, says Sakamoto, despite the new research suggesting a bias in the available fossils: “Those two things are not mutually exclusive of each other.” Journal referenceCurrent Biology DOI: doi.org/10.1016 The science of the Jurassic Coast: Dorset and Devon, England Join this captivating weekend getaway to the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where the wonders of geology take centre stage. Find out more Topics:

A growing number of economists and commentators say Donald Trump needs to find an "off-ramp" from his latest tariffs policy. Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/Getty Images 2025-04-08T21:59:26Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? The media is swarming with people saying Trump needs to find an "off-ramp" from his tariffs policy. The phrase may be so popular right now because it's a neutral way to suggest things need to change. Trump's tariff announcement last week stirred a market meltdown and is spurring retaliations. There's a phrase that's dominating the political messaging in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's tariffs: "off-ramp."From politicians to business leaders to media commentators, there's a growing contingent of voices calling for Trump to take an "off ramp" to the sweeping tariffs he unveiled in recent days.As markets tumble and economic uncertainty ramps up, maybe this so-called off ramp would calm things down.Here are a few examples of the sudden popularity of this phrase:Canada's Ambassador to the US, Kirsten Hillman, told CNN's Jake Tapper last week that, "It's important for us not to escalate to a point where we don't find ourselves able to have an off ramp or a conversation with the White House."Canadian businessman and "Shark Tank" personality Kevin O'Leary urged Trump to accept the European Union's zero-for-zero tariffs deal, calling it a "really huge opportunity for Trump to find an off-ramp" in a Monday interview on Fox Business.Michael R. Strain, an economist and director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, published an op-ed in UnHerd on Tuesday, saying that "Trump needs an off-ramp."In a commentary piece for Fortune, author and lobbyist Gary Shapiro, who serves as the CEO and Vice Chair of the Consumer Technology Association, suggested a number of "off-ramps" Trump could take to change course.Henrietta Treyz, Managing Partner and Director of Economic Policy at Veda Partners, said on Bloomberg TV that it's "pretty clear that the off-ramp" to these tariffs is "not coming any time soon."Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro said Trump "can take the off-ramp" and get to zero tariffs with Israel and Vietnam.Media outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and Axios have used "off-ramp" as part of their analysis of the tariffs.Social media has also been swarmed with users commenting on Trump's need to find an "off-ramp."So why is this phrase suddenly so popular? It could be that its a concerted effort to use politically neutral and benign phrasing, or just that it's the best way to describe changing direction."It's a metaphorically neutral way of saying, 'We probably need to stop this idea' without saying 'We need to make a U-turn' because a U-turn would be incriminating," Davis Houck, a rhetorical studies professor at Florida State University, told Business Insider. "Metaphors are always about motion and progress and going forward. And so an off-ramp metaphor is still kind of a forward motion. We're not neutral, we're not stuck, we're not turning around."Houck said that "off-ramp" is not a new term, but it's been repurposed to fit this context."Politicians are really pretty good at packaging bad news in the least bad ways as possible," Houck said. "So if I'm trying to say, 'These tariffs were a really, really bad idea, or we need to pause them,' using the off-ramp metaphor also means we can get back on the highway if we need to at some future point."Politicians have been using similar metaphors to make sense of the economy and the world for a long time, Houck said."There's kind of these cliche ways of thinking metaphorically that paint perhaps a rosier picture or get us to think about things a little bit differently," he said. "Because that's what a good metaphor does. It gets us to see things in a different light." Recommended video

Have you ordered yours yet? (Nintendo) The Wednesday letters page thinks The Duskbloods was the worst part of the Nintendo Direct, as one reader worries that Zelda: The Wind Waker HD won’t be on Switch 2. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk Smooth sale There has been some justified criticism of Nintendo’s handling of the Switch 2 launch, from unclear messaging to the decision to make the big announcement on the same day the global economy imploded, but I really want to praise them for how well the pre-order system went.I signed in on my lunch break at work, needing just a link in the invite email and a confirmation code to my phone. This put me about 10th in the queue and I was signed in within a minute, then just a quick process to put in my order for a Mario Kart bundle and Pro Controller. Compare this to the standard process where I have to get up at the crack of dawn, attempt to sign into five different overloaded websites, then get stuck in interminable queues before being told they all got bought by botnets two seconds after going live. If Sony and Microsoft are going to copy any of Nintendo’s ideas, please add the invite system to the list.TGN Professor Golden ticket I’ve said a lot in the Underbox about price, but what an earth did you have to do to actually get a Nintendo invite? Our household has three Switches (bought from Nintendo at various times), 100+ hours on Animal Crossing, the Zeldas, Smash Bros., and Mario Kart, plus considerable play on a whole multitude of Nintendo games bought digitally (yes I know, I know).I’ve been a member online since the programme started, had a Wii U, etc. I’m gutted not to have had an invite! Have you heard anything on the grapevine? I’ve got an Amazon invite but given how they send consoles (no packaging/missing innards/late) I’d really hoped to buy from Nintendo.team_catcave GC: Amazon and Argos got in new stock on Tuesday, but it’s gone now. Although that suggests they’ll keep getting in more at regular intervals. Getting lucky So, on a whim, I have just checked pre-order availability of the Switch 2 on Argos. I was able to pre-order the console with Mario Kart World, a camera, and a second Joy-Con controller with no issues.This surprised me as I thought it would have already sold out – especially as I was just logging on at 15:00 on the 15th as an afterthought. I have an email confirming it will be delivered on release day ‘direct from their suppliers’, i.e. Nintendo. Given how late it is in the afternoon I didn’t expect to be successful. Even better I had a 10% discount code and £40 of Nectar points. Let the good times roll! Does this mean that, perhaps, the Switch 2 will not be the mega hit we all expected? Is it because of the negativity around the Direct? Or did I just get lucky? Who knows? But I’m not complaining.Geoff GC: The 15th? Do you have a TARDIS? Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk Very odd I was going to write in and say that’s another bang average game from Compulsion Games with their South Of Midnight offering (following Contrast with 65 at Metacritic and We Happy Few with 64), but the Metacritic score of 77 from 71 outlets, so far, says otherwise.The three review sites I generally read are yourselves, Eurogamer, and TrueAchievements, who have given scores that equate to 50% and two 60% scores, respectively. Not a ringing endorsement. It seems odd how Microsoft kept faith with them, but shut down Tango Gameworks after they produced a critically acclaimed game…NatorDom Currently playing: Animal Well before it leaves PS Plus Premium/Extra on the 15th.Non-definitive edition It’s great that GameCube games are coming to Nintendo Switch Online on Switch 2.This means we’ll be able to replay old classics such as Luigi’s Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and Zelda: The Wind Waker but why is no one else upset that it means The Wind Waker HD Version is now stuck on the Wii U? I can’t see Nintendo releasing the same game twice on the same console. As soon as I saw the GameCube reveal in the recent Nintendo presentation, I simultaneously exclaimed ‘Yes’ and ‘Oh no’ at the same time!LeighDappa GC: They definitely mentioned all the games running at higher resolution, so it’s probably not much different than the remaster. Who knows what Nintendo would charge for that though, if they ported the Wii U version. Six out of 10 I was surprised by the comments from Shuhei Yoshida about the Nintendo Direct, as I always thought of him as very impartial and not a PlayStation zealot, despite working for Sony for so long. So, I found his remarks about too many remakes and ports to be very strange.I’m not sure what he’s even really referring to. I guess the various third party games but that was hardly the focus of the Direct. Nobody’s going to buy a Switch 2 to play Elden Ring or Final Fantasy 7 Remake but knowing they’re there is a very good thing, and proof that it will have better third party support than previous Nintendo systems. Very little time was spent on them either, so I’m not sure why fixated on that. If he’d complained about too many sequels, I could’ve understood that but It’s been over a decade since the last Mario Kart and Donkey Kong isn’t a sequel (I could’ve done without wasting time on Hyrule Warriors 3 though). He didn’t seem to factor in Nintendo’s first party games at all, which was also strange considering that’s the main reason most people buy their consoles. And then he called the reveal of The Duskbloods to be the best part, when I found it the most disappointing. I was very excited at first but when I found out it was multiplayer only my interest vanished, and I know I’m not the only one.Soba Work of art Last night I played and completed The Procession To Calvary on Switch. It’s a point ‘n’ click game that uses art from paintings for its world and characters.It’s very funny, sometimes gory (you can draw your sword and ‘interact’ with people) and doesn’t outstay its welcome, taking just a couple of hours to play through it. It’s currently on sale on Switch for about a fiver and it’s well worth that, maybe not as much at full price.Euclidian Boxes Hold fire I’ve recently been playing Sniper Elite 5 and have had a lot of fun sniping Nazis from across the maps. However, as fun as the main game is, it’s been the side quest to find and destroy the three stone eagles hidden within each level which I’ve been enjoying the most.At first they were quite easy to spot, being perched atop a church or other official looking building, but in later levels they really are quite deviously placed, often requiring you to be looking through a specific window from a particular vantage point at some nondescript part of the scenery to spot them. I’ve probably spent just as long hunting for them as I have been playing the main game but the satisfaction I get when I finally locate one of them, line up a shot, squeeze the trigger and see the eagle shatter to pieces in glorious slow-mo is very rewarding. So with that being said, you can imagine my surprise and the big cheesy grin which spread across my face when I came across this little fella when I was on a bike ride recently around my local neighbourhood. The urge to hunker down in tall grass and start taking pot shots is strong. I must resist!Heinz57 Wherever this is, the weather’s lovely (Heinz57) Inbox also-rans I just licked one of my Nintendo Switch cartridges and I can confirm to you that nobody should ever think of licking a Nintendo Switch cartridge.LoboI will never understand these truck driving games and other purposefully boring simulators. Why would you pretend to do a job where the most exciting thing that ever happens is stopping at a service station to get a bacon sandwich? And you can’t even eat a virtual sandwich!Focus That Marvel Cosmic Invasion looks great but I wish they’d do a DC Comics version, we fans never seem to get fun stuff like that. Or the dream of Marvel Vs. DC. I would love that so much.Rem91 Would just like to agree with GC that the PC Engine is a sexy console, as is the non-American SNES. I’m also partial to the PlayStation 2. It’s a bit of a monolith but I think it looks better than other slabs, like the Xbox Series X/S. The Xbox One was pretty good though.Winston More Trending Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk The small printNew Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content. You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot. You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter. Arrow MORE: Games Inbox: Will the Nintendo Switch 2 sell out? GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Nintendo is making sure the Switch 2 games lineup isn’t just full of titles you want to play, but games you can only play on the $450 Switch 2. Hades II, the sequel to studio Supergiant Games’ extraordinarily popular Hades, is going to be a timed exclusive for the first Switch and Nintendo’s upcoming handheld. If—as a PlayStation or Xbox gamer—that makes you annoyed, just know that’s long been Nintendo’s strategy. What’s changing is now Nintendo can’t be gamers’ “second console” anymore. A timed exclusive with PC may be the first chance Nintendo has to eat up a market already dominated by other, similarly priced gaming machines. In Nintendo’s latest “Creator’s Voice” series showing off developers working on Switch 2 games, Supergiant declared Hades II will be “launching first for consoles on Nintendo Switch 2.” Supergiant later clarified that the “godlike roguelike” will still sell on PC through Steam and Epic Games Store, but those who hoped to play exclusively on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S will be left in the cold until a later date. “We really, really, really want our games to perform at 60 frames per second, and with the extra power of the Nintendo Switch 2, we know we can push some of the graphical features with the extra power,” said Amir Rao, Supergiant’s studio director, in the Creator’s Voice video. You would be forgiven if you heard that and think it sounds like something a developer would say five to 10 years ago about a console that’s far more powerful than the Switch 2. Nintendo’s new handheld console is reported to be equivalent in performance to the last generation of consoles, particularly a PlayStation 4. With the help of DLSS upscaling from the Switch 2’s Nvidia-designed chip, the system is able to achieve 4K resolutions and still maintain 60 FPS in all supported games. The sequel Switch is stacked with exclusives, and not just from its in-house studios. Launch title Mario Kart World will be first on the list, but this summer we’ll hopefully get to experience ape antics in Donkey Kong Bananza. Kirby AirRiders—the sequel to the GameCube’s Kirby Air Ride developed by Super Smash Bros. lead Masahiro Akurai, should be out some time in 2025. But other than franchise spin-offs like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, there’s a new, curious trend of Switch 2 exclusivity focused on third party games. FromSoftware’s first multiplayer-centric The Duskbloods is set to arrive on Switch 2 in 2026. Hades II is still in early access, but fans expect the game to arrive in full sometime this year. This timed exclusive with PC deal is one of the first Nintendo has ever inked. It seems like Nintendo wants to make this year all about its new handheld (unless tariffs get in the way). © Alex Cranz / Gizmodo Nintendo is prone to do things its own way, and it—ostensibly—doesn’t care a lick if that means it seems out of step with the rest of the industry. Microsoft’s entire strategy with Xbox has been to put its once-exclusives on as many platforms as possible through Game Pass subscriptions. Meanwhile, Sony and PlayStation have ballooned sales of its once-exclusive games by bringing them to PC. Nintendo’s not likely to ever offer PC gamers a taste of Mario, but the company has every reason to want the PC gamers to know those flashy, third-party games are also on Switch 2. Market research firm DFC Intelligence posted its latest survey showing that most PC gamers’ secondary gaming device is, most-reliably, a Nintendo Switch. Part of that may be due to the $300 price point of the Switch, but PC gamers are normally the more affluent gamer market. If they’re willing to drop more than $1,000 on a gaming PC, they won’t hesitate as much to splurge on a handheld. Those gamers chose to get a Switch simply because they want to play Nintendo’s exclusive games. © DFC Intelligence The $450 asking price of the Switch 2 is a larger barrier to its secondary console status. There’s even more concern among gamers Nintendo may raise the price of the Switch 2 to $500 or more due to Trump tariffs after the company pushed preorders back to an unknown date (Canadians will also need to wait for preorders as well). DFC indicated the Switch maker could set up a 20% increase, pushing the Switch 2 $530 for its new console in the U.S. Nintendo is setting a new standard for game prices too, exemplified with the $70 asking price for Donkey Kong Bananza and $80 for the digital version of Mario Kart World. Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser told The Washington Post that game prices are “variable” and will depend on factors as esoteric as whether a game has “durability over time and repeatability of gameplay.” While Nintendo can justify its own prices, it needs other, cheaper games that people are actually excited to play. Hades II is currently $30 on Steam. Nintendo is keen to flex its market power thanks to its legion of fans rabid for the next installment of the company’s tentpole franchises, but it can’t exist on its fanbase alone, not with these prices. DFC said it expected Nintendo to sell 15 million Switch 2 units shortly after launch. It’s less than the 17 million the firm anticipated pre-tariffs even if its still set to break records. The higher costs necessitates Nintendo justify its price, or—if it can’t do that—incentivize people to justify their console purchases with good old FOMO, or fear of missing out.

A buried ancient altar at the center of the Maya city of Tikal points to the tensions between the Maya and their neighbors in the late 300s C.E. According to a new study in Antiquity, the altar wasn’t made by artisans trained in Tikal. Instead, it was made by artisans trained in Teotihuacan, an ancient city around 630 miles away that had a heavy influence — and a heavy hand — over Tikal in the fourth century C.E. “It’s increasingly clear that this was an extraordinary period of turbulence at Tikal,” said Stephen Houston, a study author and an archaeologist and anthropologist at Brown University, according to a press release. “What the altar confirms is that wealthy leaders from Teotihuacan came to Tikal and created replicas of ritual facilities that would have existed in their home city. It shows Teotihuacan left a heavy imprint there.”According to the study authors, the altar is a testament to the tensions within the ancient world and reveals important insights into the Maya’s response to Teotihuacan influence in Tikal.Tikal Versus TeotihuacanResearchers discovered a buried altar that was built around the late 300s A.D. (Image Courtesy of Amanda McGregor, Image by Edwin Román Ramírez)The Maya city of Tikal arose in modern-day Guatemala around 850 B.C.E. It started out small and uninfluential. But by around 300 C.E., Tikal had grown in size and in influence and had started interacting consistently with the city of Teotihuacan in modern-day Mexico. Though the relationship between the two communities was initially commercial and centered on trade, it gradually turned contentious by the late 300s C.E., with the people of Teotihuacan overthrowing and potentially occupying the city of Tikal.“It’s almost as if Tikal poked the beast and got too much attention from Teotihuacan,” Houston said, according to the release. “That’s when foreigners started moving into the area.”Over the years, researchers have gathered a good amount of evidence on the movement of elites from one city to the other. In 2021, for instance, researchers reported that they had found a citadel in Tikal, which indicated that people from Teotihuacan had arrived in the city — and had probably occupied it — in the lead-up to its overthrow. Similarly, in the 1960s, researchers found an inscription in Tikal suggesting that elites from Teotihuacan had removed the city’s ruler around 378 C.E. and had replaced him with a ruler “who proved a useful local instrument to Teotihuacan,” Houston said, according to the release.The authors of the new study say that the ancient altar at Tikal adds to this tale of political takeover. Constructed in the same time period as the coup, in the late 300s C.E., according to the press release, the altar seems to have appeared at the center of the city as a part of its overthrow.Responding to RivalryA rendering of the altar illustrates the painted panels of red, black and yellow depicting a person wearing a feathered headdress and flanked by shields or regalia. (Image Courtesy of Amanda McGregor, Image by Heather Hurst)Depicting a figure in feathered regalia, the altar’s painted panels resemble depictions of the “Storm God,” a deity seen in art from Teotihuacan. But this paneling isn’t the only indication that the altar was made by an artist trained in Teotihuacan. Indeed, the altar’s contents — the body of a child placed in a sitting position — bear a stronger similarity to Teotihuacan’s traditions of ritual sacrifice and burial than Tikal’s.With its paintings and its contents, the altar testifies to the Teotihuacan influence in Tikal. But it also testifies to the aftermath of that influence, as the altar and its surrounding area were later buried. “The Maya regularly buried buildings and rebuilt on top of them,” said Andrew Scherer, another study author and archaeologist and anthropologist at Brown University, according to the press release. “But here, they buried the altar and surrounding buildings and just left them, even though this would have been prime real estate centuries later. They treated it almost like a memorial or a radioactive zone. It probably speaks to the complicated feelings they had about Teotihuacan.”Tikal’s relationship to Teotihuacan and to the Teotihuacan takeover was certainly “complicated,” as the tensions in the fourth century C.E. preceded a period of power for the Maya, Houston said in the press release. Tikal’s success spanned several centuries, though the Maya always remembered their rivalry with Teotihuacan.“There’s a kind of nostalgia about that time, when Teotihuacan was at the height of its power and taking increasing interest in the Maya,” Houston said in the release. “It’s something exalted for them; they looked back on it almost wistfully.”Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.