ARCHAEOLOGISTS have made a stunning discovery in the dense jungles of Mexico , uncovering a lost Mayan city buried for centuries. Using cutting-edge laser mapping technology, or lidar, the team discovered the remains of an ancient city complete with temple pyramids, covered plazas and reservoirs filled with hidden history.
The discovery was made in the state of Campeche, in southeastern Mexico, and shows how much of the Mayan civilization remains undiscovered.
The discovered city was named Valeriana, after a nearby freshwater lagoon. It is thought to have been founded more than 2,000 years ago, even before 150 AD. Valeriana represents one of the largest and most monumental cities of the Classic Maya civilization.
Using lidar technology, researchers managed to map the highly complex structures, including several covered plazas, temple pyramids, and reservoirs formed by water catchments. The city also had a ball court, a typical feature of many Mayan centers.
Previously, such discoveries required a lot of time and effort, with archaeologists having to trek through dense jungle with machetes to find the remains of civilization.
However, with the advancement of lidar technology, a laser-based mapping technique, researchers can now scan large areas in a short time and reveal structures hidden beneath the forest canopy. Lidar uses laser light to produce a three-dimensional map of the Earth’s surface, revealing details that are difficult to reach with traditional methods.
Luke Auld-Thomas, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University, was one of the first to use lidar to dig deeper into the Maya civilization. With the help of scientists from Tulane University and Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, Auld-Thomas analyzed lidar data from a 2013 survey by a forest monitoring project in the area. The results were remarkable: They discovered a Maya city that had never been recorded in history.
Mayan City Life Revealed
What the research team found showed a greater complexity and advancement of the Maya civilization than previously thought. Valeriana had all the elements of a Mayan political capital: a network of wide streets, several large plazas connecting different parts of the city, and a magnificent temple pyramid.
There is also a ball court that is famous as a symbol of social and cultural activities among the Maya people. There is even an artificial reservoir that functions to regulate the flow of water, an extraordinary engineering achievement for that time.
This discovery further strengthens the belief that the Maya civilization was highly advanced and more widespread than previously thought. Auld-Thomas argues,
“We’ve found not just small settlements, but large cities with pyramids right on the main trade routes. This is evidence that this region was more densely populated and more developed than we previously thought,” Luke Auld-Thomas was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Valeriana is just one of many Mayan cities likely hidden beneath the tropical jungles of Mexico and Guatemala. Using lidar, researchers can delve deeper into the history of this civilization without having to physically destroy archaeological sites or encroach on the jungle.
This discovery also indicates that there are many more undiscovered treasures in the area. Although the government and scientific community are unaware of the existence of this city, lidar technology has brought this discovery to the surface.
This mapping not only leads us to a better understanding of the Maya civilization, but also provides valuable insights into how these ancient cities functioned and interacted with their environment.
For example, the reservoirs discovered at Valeriana show how the Maya were able to manage their natural resources very effectively, even in harsh and inaccessible areas.
With the development of mapping and remote sensing technologies such as lidar, we can learn more about ancient cities and civilizations that once existed. Auld-Thomas said,
“Looking back in time and understanding how ancient cities managed their agriculture, resources and population growth can be very useful in addressing the environmental and social challenges we face today,” he said.
This knowledge could provide valuable clues about how we can design more sustainable cities of the future.
In addition, this discovery also shows that knowledge about the Mayan civilization is much more complex than we have previously known. This research has the potential to change our view of the history of this civilization, opening up more mysteries that have not been revealed.
Six years earlier, the same team used lidar to discover more than 60,000 Mayan structures hidden beneath the dense jungle of Guatemala’s Petén region. The discovery revealed the surprising fact that the region was likely inhabited by millions more people than previously thought.
Using lidar mapping, researchers discovered large-scale agricultural fields and irrigation channels that indicate the Maya had a highly developed agricultural system.