mayan city A body missing in the jungles of southern Mexico has been found. The discovery was made in the southeastern state of Campeche, and archaeologists named it Valeriana after a nearby freshwater lagoon.
“The larger of Valeriana’s two monumental areas has all the hallmarks of a classic Mayan political capital: an enclosed plaza connected by wide causeways; a pyramid of temples; a ball game; reservoir formed by damming an arroyo (seasonal waterway) and probably an E-group assemblage, the architectural layout generally indicating a date of creation before 150 AD,” the study said. . journal ancient.
Discovering this city didn’t require tearing through the jungle with machetes or painstakingly digging with brush and spatulas. Also, the researchers didn’t need a tape measure, binoculars, or a compass to find their way through the thick foliage. Instead, they adopted cutting-edge technology. Laser, drone and satellite maps. Using these tools, they discovered cities hidden for centuries beneath Mexico’s deep jungles, unearthing pyramids, enclosed plazas, and ancient reservoirs.
Luke Old Thomas, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University, made the discovery. His analysis revealed a vast network of previously unexplored settlements.
Old Thomas and his research colleagues were able to map the city beneath the jungle thanks to airborne laser scanning, better known as lidar (light detection and ranging). Lidar (light detection and ranging) is a remote sensing technology that uses pulsed lasers and other data collected through high-altitude flights. Generate accurate 3D models of surface features, revolutionizing the way archaeologists explore the hidden past.
The laser pulses generate a topographical map in the same way that bats use echolocation. Laser light is emitted from the aircraft, bounces off objects on the ground, and returns to a detector on the underside of the aircraft. In Mexico, only a fraction of the pulses pass through the dense jungle, but so many are emitted that enough light reaches the ground to create maps with resolutions of up to 1 meter. Based on the timing and strength of the returning pulses, the detector maps the contours of the terrain, revealing hills, ditches, and ancient ruins covered in vegetation. This technology is also being incorporated into self-driving cars to help avoid collisions.
“For a long time, our understanding of the Maya civilization was limited to an area of a few hundred square kilometers,” says Old-Thomas. “This limited sample was obtained with great effort, with archaeologists painstakingly examining every square meter and cutting off plants with machetes, which could be traced back to someone’s home 1,500 years ago. I found myself standing on a pile of rocks that may have been.”
