Photo by Laura LaBrie on Unsplash (illustrative)
On 29 October 2024, archaeologists led by Luke Auld-Thomas of Northern Arizona University reported in the journal Antiquity that laser-scanning data from a 2013 forest-carbon survey in Campeche, Mexico, hid thousands of ancient Maya buildings. Among them was a previously unknown city the team named Valeriana.
Key facts
The team analyzed about 122 square kilometers of lidar data and counted 6,764 structures, about 55 per square kilometer.
Valeriana has two monumental districts about 2 kilometers apart, with plazas, temple pyramids, ballcourts and a likely astronomical E-Group complex.
The site dates to the Classic Period and lies close to modern farms and a regional highway.
The lidar had been collected by ecologists and foresters to monitor forest carbon, not to look for ruins.
Why it matters
The study suggests that dense Maya cities and farmland were common across the region, not just where archaeologists had chosen to look. Reusing scans made for other purposes is a cheap way to map hidden heritage over large areas.
Worth noting
The findings come from remote sensing alone; fieldwork at Valeriana was still being planned when the study was published, so details of the city's size and history remain to be checked on the ground.