When a PhD student took a second look at laser survey data collected in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, he discovered an entire hidden city built by the ancient Maya people. A new study published this week in Antiquity reveals the impressive scope and scale of the newly discovered city complex, which researchers named Valeriana.
Previously Unknown Maya City Comprises Over 6,000 Structures
Concealed beneath the jungle canopy in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, the recently revealed Maya city ruins were “hidden in plain sight” near modern buildings and highways. Researchers named the city Valeriana after a nearby freshwater lagoon. The ruins date back between 250 and 900 CE, during the Classic Period of ancient Maya history. At its peak from 750 to 850 CE, Valeriana may have been home to up to 50,000 people—a higher number than the area’s modern-day population.
Valeriana shows “all the hallmarks of a Classic Maya political capital” and comprises over 6,000 structures. These include temple pyramids rivaling the ones at Tikal and Chichén Itza, as well as a ball court, broad causeways, amphitheaters, and enclosed plazas. The study also revealed a dense urban sprawl, with terraces and houses covering the hillside outside the ancient Maya city center.
Lidar Technology Reveals Ancient Ruins
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Sign up to our Free Weekly NewsletterThe Maya city ruins were discovered using lidar, a type of laser survey that maps structures hidden under vegetation. A lidar survey involves a remote sensing technique in which laser pulses are fired from an overhead airplane, and objects on the ground below are mapped according to the time it takes the laser signal to bounce back to its origin.
Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student in archaeology at Tulane University and lead author of the new study, explained, “Scientists in ecology, forestry, and civil engineering have been using lidar surveys to study some of these areas for totally separate purposes. So what if a lidar survey of this area already existed?” Indeed, Auld-Thomas’s analysis of existing lidar survey data—originally collected to monitor carbon in forests—revealed the ancient Maya city complex. It is the first to be found in the east-central Campeche region of Mexico. Researchers also believe that Valeriana was second in density only to Calakmul, the largest known ancient Maya site in Latin America.
“There’s a Lot More to Be Discovered”
The researchers’ next step is to actually visit the site. They also hope to search for more remnants of ancient Maya civilization using lidar survey data. Of Valeriana’s unexpected discovery, Auld-Thomas said, “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.”
Thomas Garrison, an archaeologist who was not personally involved in the study, told Live Science, “Unfailingly, everywhere that this sort of work is done, there’s more settlement [discovered]. It all provides more pieces for this huge puzzle, and every puzzle piece counts.”
