LIDAR Uncovers A New Mayan Lost City

Aerial images reveal a huge settlement in Campeche, Mexico, just waiting to be explored

The use of LIDAR (laser imaging, detection, and ranging) in archaeology has been a complete game-changer for previously hard to access areas, including mountain ranges, deserts and rainforests. Previous LIDAR studies in the Amazon shocked archaeologists with the scope and scale of former human settlements, confirming conquistador stories of teeming cities on the banks of the river.

In yet another impressive study, aerial images over the Mexican region of Campeche have stunned the world with clear pictures of large-scale settlements, buildings and maybe even pyramids, all lost to time.

Campeche lies within the Yucatán Peninsula, and possesses many sizable areas of rainforest and nature reserves. It is something of a ‘blank spot’ within Mayan studies, despite the presence of pyramids and other ruins. Previous archaeological work has revealed Mayan activity dating to the Classical era (AD 250–900). Using remote imagery technology provides researchers with an easier way to survey and sample areas of interest, even within thick forest and rugged terrain.

Sites and settlement densities in the Alianza survey area (figure by authors).

Approximately 122km² of high-quality airborne LIDAR data was collected in 2013. The area studied was named Alianza (see image). I’ll quote some of the results from the paper to give a feel for how the data is interpreted:

Block 1, located just south and east of the important site of Río Bec, includes one probable example of the distinctive paired pseudopyramid architectural style that takes its name from that site. The character of settlement, including the ubiquity of agricultural infrastructure, is identical to that recorded by pedestrian survey at Río Bec: a sprawling ‘dense rural’ agro-settlement landscape with little of the imposing public architecture so common elsewhere in the Maya region. One notable exception, however, is an architectural complex adjacent to a deep sinkhole giving access to a partially collapsed cave system. The architectural complex is encircled by a narrow ditch, the small scale of which, together with the lack of an associated embankment, precludes a defensive interpretation. The ditch is in the shape of a quatrefoil, canonically the shape used to represent caves and sinkholes in Mesoamerican art. This unusual pairing of prominent sinkhole and quatrefoil ditch warrants future investigation.

Block 1 survey block, with building footprints in black and platform footprints in purple; top right) probable Río Bec-style complex marked by *; bottom right) sinkhole with associated quatrefoil ditch (figure by authors).

As you can see, the researchers are not simply describing things straightforwardly, but looking for familiar patterns that match and don’t match with other Mayan settlement layouts. This also includes drawing on knowledge of Mayan artwork and representation of geographical features within their own lexicon.

Detail of Valeriana site core, in the north-east corner of Block 2 (figure by authors).

Block 2 directly overlies the epicentre of a major urban area that was previously unknown to the scientific community. This city, which we call Valeriana after an adjacent freshwater lagoon, encompasses two major hubs of monumental architecture 2km apart, linked by continuous dense settlement and landscape engineering. The discovery of Valeriana highlights the fact that there are still major gaps in our knowledge of the existence or absence of large sites within as-yet unmapped areas of the Maya Lowlands.

Being able to identify dams, monumental architecture and housing in close proximity meant researchers were able to positively point to a new ‘city’, one which could be excavated at a later period, and helps fill in the map of Mayan lowland urban life.

The larger of Valeriana's two monumental precincts has all the hallmarks of a Classic Maya political capital: multiple enclosed plazas connected by a broad causeway; temple pyramids; a ballcourt; a reservoir formed by damming an arroyo (a seasonal watercourse); and a probable E-Group assemblage, an architectural arrangement that generally indicates a founding date prior to AD 150

Again, drawing on the well-understood aspects of Mayan city organisation, the new city can be compared and contrasted, and an estimated date arrived at based on those aspects.

One of the main conclusions from the paper is that Mesoamerican antiquity was a crowded and busy place, where dense urban or proto-urban settlements were more common than previously realised. These types of discoveries are extremely exciting and its likely that we’ll see a lot more LIDAR results over the next decade.