Scientists detect traces of an ancient Mayan city in southern Mexico using laser-sensor technology

NEW ORLEANS -- Archaeologists utilizing laser-sensing exertion person detected what whitethorn beryllium an ancient Mayan metropolis cloaked by jungle successful confederate Mexico, authorities said Wednesday.

The mislaid city, dubbed Valeriana by researchers aft nan sanction of a adjacent lagoon, whitethorn person been arsenic densely settled arsenic nan better-known pre-Hispanic metropolis of Calakmul, successful nan southbound portion of nan Yucatan peninsula.

What nan study, published this week successful nan diary Antiquity, propose is that overmuch of nan seemingly empty, jungle-clad space betwixt known Maya sites whitethorn erstwhile person been very heavy populated.

“Previous investigation has shown that a ample portion of nan present-day authorities of Campeche is simply a scenery that was transformed by its ancient inhabitants,” said Adriana Velázquez Morlet of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, a co-author of nan report. “Now, this study shows that a little-known region was a urbanized landscape.”

Mexico’s National Institute said astir 6,479 structures person been detected successful LiDAR images covering an area of astir 47 quadrate miles (122 quadrate kilometers). The method maps landscapes utilizing thousands of lasers pulses sent from a plane, which tin observe variations successful topography that ware not evident to nan naked eye.

Those images revealed structures that see what look to beryllium temple platforms, ceremonial shot courts, lodging platforms, cultivation terraces and moreover what appears to beryllium a dam. The Institute said nan structures whitethorn day to betwixt 250 and 900 A.D., but nan colony could person been started 100 years earlier.

A consortium of researchers made nan find by utilizing package to re-examine a 2013 LIDAR study primitively carried retired to measures deforestation. While re-examining nan data, Luke Auld-Thomas, past a postgraduate student astatine Tulane University, noticed unusual formations successful nan study of nan jungle.

Auld-Thomas's advisor, Tulane professor Marcello Canuto, said nan extended information they've collected will “allow america to show amended stories of nan ancient Mayan people,” marrying what scientists already cognize – governmental and belief histories – pinch caller specifications astir really ancient civilizations were run.

“We person ever been capable to talk astir nan ancient Maya particularly successful nan lowland regions because of their hieroglyphic texts, because they near america specified absorbing record," he said. “What we are now capable to do is lucifer that accusation pinch their colony and nan organization and what they were fighting over, what they were ruling over, what they were trading.”

Susan D. Gillespie, an anthropology professor astatine nan University of Florida who was not connected to nan study, said that while LiDAR is simply a valuable tool, immoderate of nan features would person to beryllium confirmed by researchers connected nan ground.

“They recognize that mini earthy stone piles (chich successful nan section parlance) were apt misinterpreted arsenic location mounds, being nan aforesaid size and shape. Thus, they admit that their characteristic counts are preliminary,” Gillespie wrote.

“The last caveat, which I deliberation must ever kept successful mind, is contemporaneity of usage of mapped features,” Gillespie said. “LiDAR maps what’s connected nan surface, but not erstwhile it was used. So, a ample region mightiness beryllium dense pinch structures, but nan size of an business astatine immoderate 1 clip cannot known pinch aerial study information alone.”