In recent days the news has been bouncing around the national media that a doctoral student from Tulane University in the United States, Luke Auld-Thomasdiscovered one “by chance”. new Mayan city unknown in the jungles of Mexicoin the central-eastern part of the federal state of Campechein the peninsula of Yucatan. A city, called Valeriana, which dates back to the mid-2nd century AD and with more than 6500 structures hidden by vegetation (including some pyramids). Well, in reality we cannot speak of randomness, but of a rational and conscious use of available resources and technologies, which effectively led to a new discovery of great archaeological value.
The research was carried out in collaboration betweenTulane Universityin Louisiana, theNorthern Arizona UniversitytheUniversity of Houston and the INational Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. Scholars have been using the technology for years LIDAR for the study of the ancient landscapes of Mexico. The LIDAR (Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) is one of the most advanced technologies available to us to precisely build three-dimensional models of objects and especially landscapes. How does it work? Well, a bundle laseremanating from devices mounted on aircraft or drones, once it hits a surface and reflects from it, it is detected and allows reconstruction with precision there morphology of a terrain or landscape. This method has proven essential for archaeological research in the jungles of southern Mexico, being able to “see” beyond the thick vegetation.
LIDAR technology is quite complex and expensive. Consequently, to study a part of the territory inhabited by the ancient Maya in 1st millennium AD not yet subject to specific archaeological studies, Auld Thomas and the other scholars involved in the study wondered whether LIDAR data could be exploited already presentnot designed for the purposes of archaeological research. In fact, in 2013a ecological research project Mexican called Alianza M-REDD+financed Nature Conservancyan American non-profit for the protection of biodiversity, had mapped a large area of southern Mexico with LIDAR, to study the conservation status of the forest.
This area is located in the central plains of the peninsula Yucatanthe area where the Mayan civilization flourished during the 1st millennium, more precisely in the central-eastern part of the federated state of Campeche. Since these are areas not yet studied from an archaeological point of viewthe researchers had the wise intuition to use the data collected by Alianza reinterpreting them in an archaeological key. The data collected, reviewed with a different eye by archaeologists, have allowed us to recognize a densely populated landscape in the Mayan era, with agglomerations of various sizes, including an urban center of considerable sizerenamed by the research group “Valerian“.
In light of the LIDAR data, this city demonstrates characteristics comparable to those of other large Maya cities already known: some pyramids, streets, large squares. Based on known comparisons with other urban centers, the construction of Valeriana has been dated to mid-2nd century ADor even before the period “classic” of Mayan history, which goes from the mid-3rd century to the end of the 1st millennium AD The other discovered building clusters comply known patterns of landscape exploitationwhich allow us to hypothesize how the Maya knew how to make the most of the resources they spaces.
