king 18 rabbit built more than any other copan king, before or after him, according to william sanders. sanders: i think this would be the time when the power of the lineage heads was at its weakest and the power of the central authority was at it's highest, the power of the king was at its highest in copan's history. keach: but even then, royal power was limited, according to archaeologist and co-director of several copan excavations david webster. webster: i think power is the ability of leaders to coerce people into doing things they don't want to do. you get power like that generally in one of two ways -- by having some kind of force or threat of force behind your demands, like a military force. or you get power by having something -- land, water, some scarce resource that other people need, and you manipulate them that way. i don't think maya kings were powerful in either sense. keach: the kings ruled not so much through power but through their authority to settle disputes, spearhead the common defense and control some land. they also gained enormous prestige by redistributing pre

keach: archaeologist william sanders has been leading excavations in the copan valley since 1980.e decided to do a series of large-scale excavations out in the countryside to get an idea what the farming population was like. what kind of houses did they live in ? what was their lifestyle like ? probably 80% of the population of copan was in that social category. keach: unlike ceren, the ancient houses of copan had been exposed to centuries of erosion. very few artifacts remained intact or in their original location. still the team finds significant clues. in one structure, the team discovers a razed platform of stone, the remnants of a sleeping bench. in another, they find evidence for a kitchen -- shattered obsidian blades that once were knives and broken pieces of pottery that were once used for cooking. the layout of ancient maya houses is quite different from our own. the maya constructed separate buildings for sleeping, cooking and storing food. they organized these buildings around patios. after two seasons of work up here, what can we say ? we have almost fully excavated a

archaeologist william sanders. the economy of any given human group, any culture, is a powerful factor that affects the rest of that culture -- the social organization, the political institutions, even the ideology, the religion of a people. from my perspective, the economy of a group is one of the most powerful determinants of human behavior. keach: to archaeologists, all economies fall somewhere on a spectrum from simple to complex. in a simple economy, people grow or gather all the food they eat. they make all the things they use. households in such simple economies are almost completely self-sufficient. at the other end of the spectrum are highly complex economies in which people specialize in one particular job, like these shoe salesmen in morocco. specialization means people are no longer self-sufficient, but depend on each other. the shoe salesmen are dependent on the shoemakers, and the shoemakers are dependent on the tanners, and so on. this dependence on others makes society in general more complex, so sp

williams leads the comeback. he hits ricky sanders, but watch the effort. game tied at 24. 47 seconds left, rookie kicker chip loe miller lines up from 23 yards away. he missed key kicks a few weeks earlier, but this one splits the uprights. >> i had the confidence and got the letdown. i proved to everything that i can kick in the league and i want to do that tonight. >> reporter: another guy who can kick. morten andersen. four seconds left, a chance to tie from 49 yards away. it has the legs, but not the aim. sails right, skins win 27-24. >> we prevailed today. they have a great team, just like i thought they did. i was expecting to play them last year in the playoffs, and i nigh this would be a great game. i'm glad we won. >>> dare green hasn't changed a bill. they finished 7-9.rell green had a bill. they finished 7-9. somebody in vegas thinks the skins will be a bit better. >> also good to see doug williams there. >>> those were the good old days. >> yeah, they were. >>> hear from the woman who survived a beaver attack. >> also coming up. homeless animal

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sanders, nbc news, miami. >>> and that is our broadcast for this thursday night. thank you for joining us. i'm savannah guthrie for brian williams and everyone here at nbc news, have a good night and we'll see you tomorrow morning on today. . a good night and we'll see you tomorrow morning on today. >>> protect and serve. not protect and cash your check and maybe serve if it is good enough. >> right now at 6:00, an oakland a's pitcher lets it fly at a communicate crime meeting. good evening. thank you for joining us. >> a well known bay area athlete is making headlines for speaking out and challenging a local police chief. it was quite a scene for a's star pitcher, dallas braden. >> he was toting a baseball bat and the chief threatened to have him removed from the bay area event. >> braden came

sanders, nbc news, miami. >>> and that is our broadcast for this thursday night. thank you for joining us. i'm savannah guthrie for brian williamsnews, have a good night and we'll see you tomorrow morning on today.