kaminaljuyu – November Member of the Month

Alright, alright, we know that we have not done a member of the month spotlight in a fair few months, but that does not mean we don’t notice how lovely our members are anyways. This month is no different, and we’d like to showcase kaminaljuyu, one of the most complicated names on SoSa! Many have wondered where his unique name comes from, and the answer also alludes to his hobbies and future plans. Kaminaljuyu is a city and an archaeological site from the Maya highlands during the pre-classic period. It just so happened to have been on his mind when he signed up for an account!

One of our friendliest members, he is always quick to greet a newbie and talk of his many adventures. Do not worry, we will share a lot of cool facts about this cool cat, so you can stalk him better without actually getting to know him. You are most welcome!


Sebastian is a 21-year-old male human bean.  He lives in the lovely mountains of Colorado. Please go visit him, he always offers SoSa members the chance to go skiing for free. How can anyone resist? He is completing a double major in History and Anthropology and has a minor in Geography.
“If it has to do with the past – I want a degree in it!” – kaminaljuyu, 2017



Here he is smiling at us from a site in Belize. The smile is genuine as they found this tomb that they believed belonged to an elite person. They found bones, jade, broken pottery, shells, tons of rubble and some grave goods inside. Not everything is fun and games, just one day earlier a caterpillar had crawled on his hand and provided him with an open wound where it touched him. Also, a howler monkey had pooped all over the dig site just that morning. Just saying.

What other holes has kaminaljuyu gotten into? (ayy)
Within the US, he’s been to North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado (for Native American or Paleontological sites) He’s dug up a Triceratops in Colorado, and a mammoth site in South Dakota and Wyoming. He’s also excavated in Belize, Italy and Mongolia.

He has a lot of hobbies outside of his SoSa life. (psh, people have a life outside SoSa? The audacity!) While he’s not hanging out and enriching our brains with knowledge, Sebastian is super active and keeps both his mind and body busy.  Here are two of his drawings, the first is his personal favourite, while the second is the one that others end up liking the most.



Living in the Colorado mountains allows kaminaljuyu to rock climb, ice climb, horse ride, backpack and ski among other various activities. He also said he liked to finger his guitar because he sucks at singing? I don’t even know, his words not mine. He can also juggle and enjoys playing chess…against himself! (Who wins?)


When kaminaljuyu provided us with pictures we can use for the blog, this one stood out. It looks like a really cool foreign Indiana Jones type site, right? Wrong. This is a Mandan earth lodge in the foreign state of North Dakota, where kaminaljuyu’s crew was invited to tour after excavating an old Mandan hillfort and town from the 1300s.

Just this last Summer, kaminaljuyu abandoned his friends on SoSa to go to a remote location in Mongolia for about a month, where he lived without running water for bathing. That’s not the worst part. Worst part is, there was no internet!


This picture was taken just this last summer in western remote Mongolia, where they excavated a bronze age burial mound. Underneath all the rock was a buried chieftain with some ornate grave goods. Oooh

If you didn’t already know – you must congratulate kaminaljuyu for joining the god damn Peace Corps! Starting this summer, he will be a primary school teacher in a Gambian village for 27 months. He will be roughing it for his stay, no electricity or running water and he will have to learn one of the Gambian languages depending on where his stay takes him.

If you don’t feel close enough to kaminaljuyu yet and want more of him, he has graced us with a YouTube playlist of his favourite tunes. Check them out here. He will be growing this playlist so check back often! (My personal favourite from the list is Malhari – Bajirao Mastani, the video is super cool)

We would like to thank Sebastian for being a great member of our beloved SoSa community