According to a BBC broadcast on the 29th (local time), archaeologists from the United States and the United Kingdom used Lidar, a location coordinate measurement system using radar, to excavate Mayan civilization ruins in a tropical rainforest near Campeche, Mexico.
This ruins, named ‘Baleriana’ after the surrounding coast, is a complex city consisting of a pyramid, a stadium, a theater, a causeway, and residential quarters, and is said to be close to the size of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.
The academic world evaluated that Valeriana is the second largest complex of Mayan cities discovered to date after Calakmul, which is located about 100 km from the ruins.
The ancient city is estimated to have had a population of 30,000 to 50,000 people, and appears to have peaked between 750 and 850 AD, the BBC reported.
The research team explained that while searching on Google, they happened to come across LIDAR survey data from the area conducted by an organization in Mexico to protect the environment, and that they confirmed the existence of the Valeriana ruins by reinterpreting it using archaeological techniques.
In particular, the research team emphasized that the excavation of the ruins will serve as evidence to overturn the existing hypothesis that the Mayans went into the rainforest to die, and that the rainforest was actually one of the homes of the prosperous Mayan civilization.
The Mayan civilization, which originated around 2,500 BC in what is now southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, blossomed with splendid cities, stone palaces, and astronomical observatories, but then disappeared for unknown reasons.
In particular, there is a strong theory that the first extinction, which occurred around the 10th century, was due to the inability to withstand environmental devastation caused by excessive population density, and the New Mayan Empire, built by descendants who abandoned the city, disappeared coinciding with the Spanish conquest.