Laser Scans Reveal Ancient Maya ‘Megalopolis’

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A vast, interconnected network of ancient cities was home to millions more people than previously thought. (National Geographic)

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This illustration of Tikal, a major city of the Classic Maya period, may need to be updated with less jungle forestation and more wide avenues, canals, and elevated walkways.
Painting by Peter E. Spier, National Geographic

Discussion Ideas

Archaeologists made a “major breakthrough” in their study of the ancient Maya. Who are the Maya?
- “Maya” describes many groups of indigenous peoples native to northern Central America. Maya peoples are ethnically and culturally diverse, but are connected by shared history and language.
  - “They have endured, outlasting climate catastrophe, the collapse of their civilization, and, later, conquest by Europeans,” says one historian.
- Maya civilization was a complex, pre-Columbian society that developed and thrived in Central America for more than a thousand years.
  - Early “Preclassic” Maya (starting about 2000 BCE) developed agricultural technology to harvest corn, beans, and squash. This allowed Maya society to develop the large urban areas and divisions of labor that define complex civilizations.
  - Classic Period Maya civilization (ending about 900 CE) had huge urban centers (like those in northern Guatemala studied by the new research); a complex, hierarchal division of labor based on “divine kingship” at the top; monumental architecture marked by pyramids, ball courts, and wide avenues; sophisticated technology such as mathematics (including one of the earliest uses of zero), thousand-year calendars, astronomical observatories, and the only known indigenous writing system in the Americas. Classic Maya civilization interacted with other pre-Columbian societies such as the Teotihuacano in what is now Central Mexico.
  - The Maya Postclassic Period began long before European contact, but ended definitively with Spanish conquest in the early 1500s.

“Space archaeologists” made their discoveries using LiDAR technology. What is LiDAR?
- LiDAR, short for “light detection and ranging”, is a method of detecting distant objects and determining their position, velocity, volume, or other characteristic by analysis of pulsed laser light reflected from their surfaces. LiDAR is sometimes called 3D scanning or laser scanning.
  - LiDAR is frequently used to create high-resolution maps used in geology, the military, seismology, forestry, and laser-guidance systems. LiDAR is sometimes used for navigation in self-driving vehicles.
  - In this case, LiDAR was able to help scholars digitally remove the tree canopy from an area in northern Guatemala. The densely forested region is now unpopulated, but 1,200 years ago (during the Classic Maya period) it was a sprawling, complex urban area of more than a million residents.
  - “LiDAR is revolutionizing archaeology the way the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy,” says one expert.

What was the breakthrough that has historians and archaeologists so excited?
- LiDAR helped archaeologists identify about 60,000 houses, tombs, palaces, elevated highways, and other human-made features that have been hidden for centuries under the jungles of northern Guatemala.
- Archaeologists always knew the region was an urban area, but they had no idea how densely populated it was, and how strong the infrastructure sustaining the region was.
  - How densely populated?
    - “‘Most people had been comfortable with population estimates of around 5 million,’ says one expert. ‘With this new data it’s no longer unreasonable to think that there were 10 to 15 million people there—including many living in low-lying, swampy areas that many of us had thought uninhabitable.’”
  - What infrastructure?
    - A network of raised roads and highways connecting trading centers, population areas, administrative and spiritual centers, and quarries where construction material was excavated.
    - Terraced irrigation systems that supported intensive agriculture capable of feeding masses of workers.
    - A network of defensive walls, ramparts, terraces, and fortresses.

What threats does the newly discovered Maya megalopolis face?
- looting. “The survey also revealed thousands of pits dug by modern-day looters. ‘Many of these new sites are only new to us; they are not new to looters,’” says one expert.
- environmental degradation. Guatemala is losing more than 10% of its forests annually, and habitat loss has accelerated along its border with Mexico as trespassers burn and clear land for agriculture and human settlement.