In northern Guatemala, a group of scientists made a first-of-its-kind discovery of some massive Maya settlements. We are talking about a territory of 1,685 km², counting 964 villages with roads of up to 177 km that were probably built during the pre-classic period.
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The discovery was made by researchers who are part of several institutions in the USA and some specialists from Guatemala and France. The article about the project, published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, recounts the group work effort and details the discovery experience.
Together, they discovered a population that lived 2,000 years ago in the country.
During the new phase of the research, the scientists flew over Guatemala with a laser system. With the help of technology, they came to the conclusion that there was a great Mayan civilization there, with villages, a large road and settlements. For the findings, the researchers used LIDAR technology.
This laser is capable of penetrating vegetation at vast depths, revealing what lies beneath the ground. In this way, it can detect structures, shapes and paths. After years of research into the case, LIDAR has been helpful in completing the search and is what allowed them to find this large Maya settlement.
With the help of the laser, the scholars observed that there were sidewalks that resembled the roadbeds seen today. There were large roads connecting the villages. The researchers concluded that one group could visit the other through these paths.
Archeology previously believed that the site held some people and that there was a certain type of abandonment of the area. By the size of the proportion in this new discovery, it was possible to understand that there were thousands of people who lived in the locality, since the construction of roads, platforms, dikes, pyramids, palaces and others cannot be done by a few people.
For leisure, scientists managed to locate 30 Mesoamerican football fields.
The human ability to carry out all these constructions was indispensable. It was also concluded that there was a population where he worked, had his leisure time and where he practiced political acts, as is done today. LIDAR was also able to locate large hydraulic channels that brought water to the reservoir during the dry season. In all, 195 reservoirs were identified by the survey.
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