A new lost Mayan city, full of temples, pyramids and plazas, has been revealed, and this time there was no need to hack your way through the dense jungle with machetes or patiently dig with paintbrushes and spatulas. Nor were tape measures, binoculars or compasses needed to orient ourselves in the thick foliage. Instead, researchers used cutting-edge technology: lasers, drones and satellite maps. With these tools, they discovered a city hidden for centuries under the thick Mexican jungle, unearthing pyramids, closed plazas and an ancient reservoir.
The discovery in the southeastern Mexican state of Campeche was made possible by Luke Auld-Thomas, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University, who wondered if non-traditional uses of cutting-edge laser mapping, known as LIDAR, could reveal more about the ancient Mayan world.
“The larger of the two monumental enclosures at Valeriana presents all the characteristics of a classic Mayan political capital: multiple enclosed plazas connected by an extensive causeway, temple pyramids, a ball court, a reservoir formed by damming a seasonal stream, and an architectural arrangement that suggests a foundation prior to 150 AD,” the researchers explain in their study, published in the journal Antiquity.
Their analysis revealed a dense and diverse network of previously unexplored settlements, including an entire Mayan city they named Valeriana, after a nearby freshwater lagoon.
“For a long time, our understanding of the Mayan civilization was limited to an area of a few hundred square kilometers,” Auld-Thomas explained. “This limited sample was obtained with great effort, with archaeologists painstakingly going through every square meter, cutting through vegetation with machetes, only to discover if they were on a pile of rocks that could have been someone’s home 1,500 years ago.”
Researchers have achieved map the city under the jungle thanks to the airborne laser scanner, better known as Light Detection and Ranging. Or, simply, LiDAR, for its acronym in English. LiDAR, a remote sensing technique that uses pulsed lasers and other data collected through flyovers, can generate precise three-dimensional models of surface features, revolutionizing the way archaeologists explore the hidden past.
Although Auld-Thomas knew that lidar could be a valuable tool, he was also aware of its high cost. Funders are often reluctant to invest in lidar studies in areas where there are no visible signs of Mayan settlements, even though this civilization reached its peak between 250 and 900 AD.
Archaeologists increasingly recognize that the world’s tropics and subtropics were home to a wide variety of urban forms in ancient times. Many of these settlements followed a spatial dispersion pattern, commonly called “low-density urbanism.” However, it is being recognized that these urban landscapes were not uniform, but rather presented important variations in the density of settlements, both within and around cities and between different subregions.
At the same time, increasing research has revealed a greater abundance of settlements and cities than previously contemplated. This has generated a tension between two developments: on the one hand, the recognition of a high variability in settlement density and, on the other, evidence of a more densely urbanized past than previously believed.
According to the study, some researchers maintain that the discovered landscapes reflect high population density, while others suggest that the studies are biased and overrepresent the most densely populated areas. This leaves open the question of whether yet unexplored areas could confirm the existence of higher urban density or show less dense occupation.
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