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  5. Archaeologists stumble upon previously unknown Maya city in Mexico with ancient structures and temples

Archaeologists stumble upon previously unknown Maya city in Mexico with ancient structures and temples

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A team of researchers has made a significant discovery in Mexico, uncovering a lost Maya city known as Valeriana. This city features temple pyramids, enclosed plazas, and a reservoir, and was found beneath the jungle canopy using laser mapping technology known as lidar. The city is now being added to the list of notable Maya sites, joining the likes of Chichen Itza and El Mirador.

  1. US
    Luke Auld-Thomas
    Northern Arizona University
    1. We found a large city with pyramids right next to the area's only highway, near a town where people have been actively farming among the ruins for years.
    2. There were cities that were sprawling agricultural patchworks and hyper-dense; there were cities that were highly egalitarian and extremely unequal. Given the environmental and social challenges we're facing from rapid population growth, it can only help to study ancient cities and expand our view of what urban living can look like.
    3. The ancient world is full of examples of cities that are completely different than the cities we have today.
    4. We didn't just find rural areas and smaller settlements.
    5. 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.
    6. Scientists in ecology, forestry and civil engineering have been using lidar surveys to study some of these areas for totally separate purposes.
    7. For the longest time, our sample of the Maya civilisation was a couple of hundred square kilometres total.
    8. The government never knew about it; the scientific community never knew about it.
    9. That sample was hard won by archaeologists who painstakingly walked over every square metre, hacking away at the vegetation with machetes, to see if they were standing on a pile of rocks that might have been someone's home 1,500 years ago.

Maya and Inca Civilizations

  1. Ancient Maya DNA uncovers shocking evidence of paired male child sacrifices at Chichen Itza
  2. Archaeologists map lost cities in Ecuadorian Amazon, settlements that lasted 1,000 years

sources

  1. 1.The Guardian
  2. 2.BBC
  3. 3.The Times

perspectives

  1. 1.History
  2. 2.Archeology
  3. 3.Amazon Forest

countries

  1. 1.GuatemalaGT
  2. 2.MexicoMX

organizations

  1. 1.Northern Arizona University
  2. 2.National Centre for Scientific Research
  3. 3.Natural History Museum
  4. 4.Tulane University
  5. 5.University of Houston
  6. 6.Maya Heritage and Nature Foundation
  7. 7.National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping
  8. 8.National Institute of Anthropology and History
  9. 9.Natural History Museum of Bern

persons

  1. 1.Georgina Rannard
  2. 2.John Hawks
  3. 3.Luke Auld-ThomasUS

technicals

  1. 1.Maya
  2. 2.Chichen Itza
  3. 3.Antiquity