Thousands of newly discovered structures prove Mayan civilisation in Guatemala was much larger than we thought

Aeroplane-based mapping tools identified tens of thousands of structures constructed by the ancient civilisation: defence works, houses, buildings, industrial-size agricultural fields, even new pyramids

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The Mayan archaeological site of Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Mexico. Researchers have discovered thousands of ancient Mayan structures in neighbouring Guatemala. Photo: Chicurel Arnaud

Published: 1:59pm, 4 Feb 2018Updated: 8:14pm, 4 Feb 2018

Archaeologists have spent more than a century traipsing through the Guatemalan jungle, Indiana Jones-style, searching through dense vegetation to learn what they could about the Maya civilisation that was one of the dominant societies in Mesoamerica for centuries.

But the latest discovery – one archaeologists are calling a “game changer” – did not even require a can of bug spray.

Scientists using hi-tech, aeroplane-based lidar mapping tools have discovered tens of thousands of structures constructed by the Maya: defence works, houses, buildings, industrial-size agricultural fields, even new pyramids. The findings, announced on Thursday, are already reshaping long-held views about the size and scope of the Maya civilisation.

“This world, which was lost to this jungle, is all of a sudden revealed in the data,” said Albert Yu-Min Lin, an engineer and National Geographic explorer who worked on a television special about the new find. “And what you thought was this massively understood, studied civilisation is all of a sudden brand new again,” he told The New York Times.

This digital 3D image provided by Guatemala's Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation of the Mayan archaeological site at Tikal in Guatemala. Researchers found tens of thousands of previously undetected Mayan houses, buildings, defence works and roads in the dense jungle. Photo: AP

Thomas Garrison, an archaeologist at Ithaca College who led the project, called it monumental: “This is a game changer,” he told NPR. It changes “the base level at which we do Maya archaeology”.