hide out below Guatemala ’s lush Petén rain forest lie an ancient metropolis not touched by humans for more than 1,000 years , but in its heyday it was nursing home to meg of Mesoamericans who establish a advanced , sprawling empire . Now , for the first clock time , a team of outside archaeologist has discovered and mapped tens of thou of ancient structures using airborne light detection and ranging technology ( LiDAR ) over 2,100 satisfying kilometers ( 810 straight miles ) of the nation ’s lowland .
LiDAR was first apply to this area in 2009 and focused on just the immediate surround of private site . Archaeologists first key the vast metropolis inFebruary , National Geographicreported , led by Guatemalan science nonprofit group thePACUNAM Foundation . Publishing their employment inScienceover six months later , the team confirm the front of more than 61,000 ancient structures , including houses , heavy palace , ceremonial center , and pyramids .
LiDAR pierces through the thick forest canopy to reveal changes in raising , allowing the investigator to identify these topographical features as manmade walls , route , and edifice without ever experience to set foot on the ground . With this information , they are able-bodied to create three - dimensional maps in a thing of minutes , avoiding years of arduous fieldwork .
Representation of the archaeological site of Naachtun, Petén, at twilight.
“ Seen as a whole , terraces and irrigation channels , reservoirs , fortifications , and causeways reveal an astonishing amount of land modification done by the Maya over their intact landscape painting on a scale leaf antecedently unimaginable , ” explicate squad member Francisco Estrada - Belli in astatement .
In all , more than 61,000 ancient structures have been describe for in the surveyed region , indicating that up to 7 to 11 million people were present at the meridian of the Late Classic period , 650 - 800 CE . For weighing machine , New York City has about 8.5 million people . These population were raggedly stagger with different levels of urbanization and were spread out over more than 2,100 square kilometers ( 810 square miles ) . This land was modified in some agency for the intensive farming production involve to support the massive population for hundreds of age .
“ It seems clear now that the ancient Maya transform their landscape painting on a rarefied scale in Holy Order to provide it more agriculturally productive , ” said Maya archeologist Marcello A. Canuto . “ As a result , it seems probable that this neighborhood was much more obtusely populated than what we have traditionally thought . ”
The external squad also mapped extensive causeways and networks connect the various urban centers , which they say highlight just how interconnected these different city centre of attention were and how much their indweller were willing to induct in justificatory systems in the event of war .
As with any new discovery , the author reason that their findings “ generate new question , refine targets for fieldwork , elicit regional study across continuous landscape , and elevate Maya archaeology into a sheer era of research and exploration . ”
