Just south of Mexico city, Zazacatla, a 2,500 year old city, was found when a nearby brewery started to build a parking lot. Giselle Canto, now the site's lead archaeologist, noticed the ruins as she was driving by the brewery's construction site. The ruins of this city have been covered by ten housing developments, a gas station, a highway, and a commercial building. The city covers only about one square mile, but between 50 to 70 percent of the city was likely destroyed from all the construction. What has been left behind and found so far are six bases of ceremonial temples and two small sculptures that are in the Olmec style.
The Olmec civilization's most famous ceremonial center lies about 250 miles east of Zazacatla. The Olmec lived near Mexico's Gulf Coast from 1,200BC to about 400 BC and are usually considered the first of the major civilization in Meso-America. Experts and archaeologists say that this city was most likely not Olmec, but had adapted the Olmec's ways. The Olmec's range of influence was not expected to range so far from their area near the Gulf Coast. The experts believe that Zazacatla was too far away from the Olmec for direct contact, but that trade links may have existed to bring Olmec influence to Zazacatla.
Victor Castro, the Excavation Director, has said that the work at the Zazacatla site is focused on finding new areas of the ancient city and declaring those areas off-limits for new construction.