Lost Maya City Uncovered in Mexico's Jungle with Advanced Laser Mapping

 

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers have unveiled a lost Maya city buried for centuries in the dense jungle of southeastern Mexico’s Campeche state. Using advanced laser mapping technology known as lidar, the team identified temple pyramids, enclosed plazas, and an ancient reservoir in a hidden city they named Valeriana.

The project began when Luke Auld-Thomas, an anthropologist from Northern Arizona University, questioned whether non-archaeological lidar data might reveal more about the Maya civilization, which peaked between AD 250 and AD 900. Traditionally, archaeologists painstakingly hacked through dense vegetation with machetes, but lidar offers a transformative alternative by producing three-dimensional maps of the landscape from above.

Auld-Thomas realized that lidar data might already exist from environmental or civil engineering studies. His hunch proved correct; a forest monitoring initiative had conducted a comprehensive lidar survey of the area in 2013. Partnering with Tulane University, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, and the University of Houston’s National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping, the team reviewed the data, revealing a vast Maya settlement network that had remained unexplored until now.

Valeriana’s main precinct shows key features of a classic Maya political center, including temple pyramids, a ballcourt, broad causeways, and an ancient reservoir. Remarkably, the area was located near a highway and close to farmland, yet the site had remained unknown to both the government and the scientific community. “It’s a reminder that there’s so much more to discover,” Auld-Thomas said.

The team plans to begin fieldwork at the site, believing the research may offer insights relevant to modern urban planning. “Ancient cities were remarkably diverse,” said Auld-Thomas. “Studying them could broaden our ideas of sustainable city living in today’s world.”

Six years earlier, some of the same researchers used lidar in Guatemala’s Petén region, uncovering thousands of previously unrecorded Maya structures. That research indicated that the Maya civilization’s population might have reached around 10 million, suggesting large-scale agricultural practices.

This latest discovery reinforces the view that the Maya world was far more extensive and complex than previously believed.