Geologists of northern Guatemala discovered a massive Mayan site of about 1,700 square kilometers dating to the Middle and Late Preclassic Periods (between 1000 BC and 250 BC).
The results were the result of an aerial relief from which laser beams and reflected light are emitted used to create aerial images of a landscape.
This technology is useful in areas such as the tropical jungle of the Mirador-Calakmul karst basin of Guatemalawhere the lasers can penetrate dense tree cover.
With the data from the scanners, The team identified more than 1,000 settlements in the region, interconnected by 100 miles of causeways that the Maya they probably traveled on foot.
The new discoveries of the Maya in Guatemala
Archaeologists have also found the remains of several large platforms and pyramids.along with channels and reservoirs used to collect water, according to the study, published Dec. 5 in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica.
Airborne radar data showed “for the first time a politically and economically integrated area, and never before seen elsewhere in the Western Hemispheresaid Carlos Morales-Aguilar, study co-author and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin.
“We can now see the entire landscape of the Maya region” in this section of Guatemala, Morales said in the study.
Why was this region so important to the Mayans?
“For the Maya, the Mirador-Calakmul karst basin was the ‘Goldilocks area‘” explained Ross Ensley, study co-author and geologist at the Institute for the Geological Study of the Maya Lowlands in Houston.
“The Mayans settled [esta región] because it had the right mix of highlands for settlement and lowlands for agriculture. The highlands provided a source of limestone, their main building material, and dry land to live on,” Ensley noted.
He added “the lowlands are mostly seasonal swamps, or plains, which provided space for wetland agricultureas well as soils rich in organic matter for use in terraced agriculture.”
The underground mystery of the Maya
Researchers have already used this laser technology to explore Mayan sites in Guatemala.
In 2015, an initiative called Mirador Basin Project conducted two large-scale surveys in the southern part of the basin, focusing on the ancient city of El Mirador. That project resulted in the mapping of 1,703 square kilometers of this section of the country, according to the study.
“When I generated the first bare earth models of the ancient city of El Mirador, I was amazedMorales-Aguilar said: “It was fascinating to see the large number of deposits, monumental pyramids, terraces, residential areas and small mounds for the first time.”
Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.