Student accidentally discovers lost city in the Mexican jungle
The lost city of the Maya, hidden for centuries under dense jungle vegetation, has recently been unearthed in the state of Campeche, southeastern Mexico.
Archaeologists have discovered the city of Valeriana, home to pyramids, stadiums, amphitheaters, and plazas. Lidar technology, a laser system that reveals structures concealed by vegetation, was instrumental in this discovery.
The complex is speculated to be second in size only to the renowned Calakmul, considered the largest Mayan site in ancient Latin America. Valeriana may have housed 30-50,000 inhabitants at its peak, between 750 and 850 AD, a population greater than the current local residents.
Valeriana exhibits the traits of a Mayan capital, featuring central plazas, temples, places of worship, and a specifically designed courtyard for the ancient Mayan ball game. A significant discovery is a cistern, suggesting intelligent environmental management to sustain such a large population.
A fortuitous discovery
The discovery of Valeriana was serendipitous. Tulane University graduate student Luke Auld-Thomas stumbled upon online data from a Lidar survey conducted by a Mexican environmental monitoring agency. After analyzing the data using archaeological methods, Auld-Thomas identified a vast ancient city hidden beneath the jungle.
Professor Marcello Canuto, a co-author of the study, asserts that this discovery challenges the conventional Western perception of rainforests as “civilisations’ graveyards”. Instead, the region nurtured rich and complex civilizations, like the Maya, who established advanced societies amidst dense vegetation.
Despite high population densities in Maya cities, archaeologists believe that climate change may have triggered their decline and eventual desertion. The theory that the Maya struggled with drought due to their large population and limited natural resources gains credence from the research.
Lidar technology has revolutionized archaeological exploration of vegetation-covered areas, such as the Mexican jungle, enabling the identification of lost civilizations that eluded traditional methods. However, the sheer volume of new sites being discovered is overwhelming, and researchers are unable to investigate them all.
The research, published in the journal Antiquity, paves the way for a deeper understanding of the Maya’s cultural and environmental heritage.
Information sourced from the BBC
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