Accidental Discovery of Lost Maya City in Mexican Jungle by PhD Student

A vast Maya city has been unearthed in Mexico, centuries after its disappearance beneath the jungle canopy. Within the southeastern state of Campeche, archaeologists identified pyramids, sports fields, causeways linking different areas, and amphitheatres. The concealed complex, named Valeriana by the researchers, was brought to light through the application of Lidar, a laser surveying technique capable of mapping structures obscured by plant life. Experts consider its density to be surpassed only by Calakmul, widely regarded as the most extensive Maya site in ancient Latin America. The team identified a total of three sites within a survey area comparable in size to Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, discovering them “by accident” when an archaeologist was reviewing data online. Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane university in the US, stated, “I was on something like page 16 of Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organisation for environmental monitoring.” This particular Lidar survey employed a remote sensing method that involves emitting thousands of laser pulses from an aircraft to map underlying objects by measuring the signal’s return time. However, upon processing the data using archaeological methodologies, Mr Auld-Thomas discerned what had eluded others: a vast ancient city that could have supported a population of 30-50,000 individuals during its zenith between 750 and 850 AD. According to the researchers, this population figure exceeds the current inhabitants of the area. Mr Auld-Thomas and his associates bestowed the name Valeriana upon the city, drawing inspiration from a proximate lagoon. Professor Marcello Canuto, a co-author of the research, noted that this discovery challenges the Western notion that the Tropics were where “civilisations went to die,” explaining that this region actually fostered rich and intricate cultures. While the precise causes of the city’s decline and ultimate abandonment remain uncertain, archaeologists suggest that climate change played a significant role. Valeriana exhibits the “hallmarks of a capital city” and possessed a building density second only to the impressive Calakmul site, situated approximately 100km (62 miles) distant. Archaeologists describe it as “hidden in plain sight,” given its proximity—a mere 15-minute hike—to a main road near Xpujil, an area predominantly inhabited by Maya people today. The researchers state that no photographs of the lost city exist because “no-one has ever been there,” though local residents might have harbored suspicions about ruins beneath the earthen mounds. Spanning approximately 16.6 sq km, the city featured two primary centers with substantial structures, separated by about 2km (1.2 miles) and interconnected by closely packed dwellings and causeways. It encompasses two plazas featuring temple pyramids, sites where Maya people would have engaged in worship, concealed valuable items such as jade masks, and interred their deceased. Additionally, it included a court designated for the playing of an ancient ball game. Evidence of a reservoir was also present, suggesting that the inhabitants utilized the natural environment to sustain a considerable population. Overall, Mr Auld-Thomas and Prof Canuto conducted surveys of three distinct jungle sites, identifying 6,764 structures of diverse dimensions. Professor Elizabeth Graham of University College London, who was not a participant in the study, asserted that the findings corroborate arguments that the Maya resided in intricate cities or towns, rather than in secluded villages. She remarked, “The point is that the landscape is definitely settled – that is, settled in the past – and not, as it appears to the naked eye, uninhabited or ‘wild’.” The study implies that the collapse of Maya civilizations from 800 AD onward was partly attributable to their high population density, which rendered them unable to withstand climatic challenges. Mr Auld-Thomas commented, “It’s suggesting that the landscape was just completely full of people at the onset of drought conditions and it didn’t have a lot of flexibility left. And so maybe the entire system basically unravelled as people moved farther away.” Additionally, warfare and the 16th-century conquest of the region by Spanish invaders played a role in the elimination of Maya city-states. Prof Canuto elucidated that Lidar technology has transformed the way archaeologists survey vegetation-covered regions, such as the Tropics, thereby revealing numerous lost civilizations. He recalled that in the initial stages of his career, surveys were conducted on foot, manually, employing basic tools to examine the ground meticulously. However, he noted that in the decade since Lidar’s deployment in the Mesoamerican region, it has mapped approximately 10 times the area that archaeologists covered in roughly a century of effort. Mr Auld-Thomas indicated that his research implies the existence of numerous undiscovered sites unknown to archaeologists. Indeed, such a multitude of sites have been identified that researchers cannot realistically expect to excavate every one. Mr Auld-Thomas stated, “I’ve got to go to Valeriana at some point. It’s so close to the road, how could you not? But I can’t say we will do a project there.” He further added, “One of the downsides of discovering lots of new Maya cities in the era of Lidar is that there are more of them than we can ever hope to study.” The findings of this research are documented in the academic journal Antiquity. 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