Some 1,500 years ago, the Mayans- members of the civilization acclaimed for their solar calendar and use of a mathematical zero- began abandoning all their cities. These cities were soon enveloped by the elements and temporarily erased from history, only being rediscovered over the past couple centuries.

Rediscovery has been swift, though- hundreds of Mayan cities were uncovered over the course of the 20th century alone. Progress has stagnated a bit more recently, but researchers are still hard at work, and now we have lasers.

More specifically, modern scientists utilize a laser surveying device known as LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) for environmental mapping, which works similarly to sonar. Sonar pulses measure depth via sound waves emitted from the submarine, which can help map terrain; LIDAR does it a lot better, using infrared light pulses from a plane. These light pulses can generate an entire image of a landscape, like deserts, forests…or jungles.

Thanks to LIDAR, a massive Mayan city named Valeriana was discovered in a Mexican jungle in late October, but the laser survey happened over 10 years ago. The researchers, who were part of an environmental organization collecting ecological data, completely missed the city on their scans.

Valeriana (named after a local lake) was only unearthed thanks to a PhD student, Luke Auld-Thomas, who happened to be browsing archaeological records and found the old LIDAR data. His encounter led to a series of investigations that archaeologists plan to follow up on with a physical survey of the Mexican forest.

Valeriana would’ve looked something like this, with relatively large urban centers hidden in the tropics.

The discovery is recent enough that no physical ruins of the city have been uncovered yet, and it’s currently covered by tons of vegetation, but it’s known that it was massive. In fact, researchers believe that it was one of the biggest Mayan cities, measuring at least 47 square miles- that’s almost as big as Washington, DC. Its population may have been as large as 50,000 people, spread across some 6,000 buildings.

This isn’t the first time laser technology has helped us locate remnants of ancient Maya. Back in early 2023, archaeologists in Guatemala using LIDAR discovered an enormous network of 417 Mayan cities hidden within the rainforests, connected by “superhighways” that linked them all together.

These recent landmark events have been considered a “new dawn for all of [archaeologists], because we can now see where we would never have been able to see,” in the words of Marcello Canuto, one of the study’s chief archaeologists. This might be the beginning of a new era of tech, with it being used more readily for this sort of purpose.

There are also definitely more Mayan cities. If major findings such as these are still happening thanks to technological revolutions, then it’s pretty possible- even likely- that we still have way more to discover.

Researchers Beamed Lasers Into a Jungle and Accidentally Discovered an Ancient Mayan City