Lasers detect ancient Mayan city hidden in the jungle

An ancient Maya city has been found hidden in plain sight”beneath the jungle in the Mexican state of Campeche. Archaeologists used a laser technique called LiDAR to scan the area, “accidentally” discovering the forgotten complex, which contains pyramids, amphitheatres and sports fields.

“The government never knew about it, the scientific community never knew about it. That really puts an exclamation point behind the statement that no, we have not found everything, and yes, there’s a lot more to be discovered,” said researcher Luke Auld-Thomas working on the site.

The new research, published in the journal Antiquity, was led by Tulane University anthropology doctoral student Auld-Thomas and his advisor, Professor Marcello A. Canuto.

Luke Auld Thomas

They think the site, which they’ve named Valeriana, might have housed up to 50,000 people, which supports claims that Maya lived in complex cities or towns, not in isolated villages.

The team used lidar, a laser-based detection system, to survey 50 square miles of land in Campeche, Mexico, an area largely overlooked by archaeologists. Their findings included evidence of more than 6,500 pre-Hispanic structures, including a previously unknown large city complete with iconic stone pyramids.

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“Our analysis not only revealed a picture of a region that was dense with settlements, but it also revealed a lot of variability,” said Auld-Thomas: “We didn’t just find rural areas and smaller settlements. We also found a large city with pyramids right next to the area’s only highway, near a town where people have been actively farming among the ruins for years.

The Middle American Research Institute (MARI) at Tulane University has been pioneering the use of lidar technology in archaeological research. Over the past decade, MARI has built a state-of-the-art Geographic Information Systems (GIS) lab, to analyze remote sensing data, such as lidar. The lab is managed by Francisco Estrada-Belli, a research professor in Tulane’s Department of Anthropology.

Just think about what waits to be discovered in the Holy Land and in countries like Saudi Arabia- just opening up to archeologists for discovery.

Lidar technology uses laser pulses to measure distances and create three-dimensional models of specific areas. It has allowed scientists to scan large swaths of land from the comfort of a computer lab, uncovering anomalies in the landscape that often prove to be pyramids, family houses and other examples of Maya infrastructure.

This research may also help resolve ongoing debates about the true extent of Maya settlements.

Ancient buildings clustered on a hilltop are revealed by a narrow transect of lidar survey data. Lidar technology uses laser pulses to measure distances and create 3D models of specific areas. (Photo courtesy Luke Auld-Thomas)

“Because lidar allows us to map large areas very quickly, and at really high precision and levels of detail, that made us react, ‘Oh wow, there are so many buildings out there we didn’t know about, the population must have been huge,’” Auld-Thomas said. “The counterargument was that lidar surveys were still too tethered to known, large sites, such as Tikal, and therefore had developed a distorted image of the Maya lowlands.

“What if the rest of the Maya area was far more rural and what we had mapped so far was the exception instead of the rule?”

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The study highlights the transformative power of lidar technology in unveiling the secrets of ancient civilizations. It also provides compelling evidence of a more complex and varied Maya landscape than previously thought.

“Lidar is teaching us that, like many other ancient civilizations, the lowland Maya built a diverse tapestry of towns and communities over their tropical landscape,” Canuto said. “While some areas are replete with vast agricultural patches and dense populations, others have only small communities. Nonetheless, we can now see how much the ancient Maya changed their environment to support a long-lived complex society.”

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