Becky Ferreira, 22 December 2022, Motherboard (Vice)

Excerpt:

>Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a vast ancient Maya civilization that flourished more than 2,000 years ago in northern Guatemala, reports a new study.

>This long-lost urban web encompassed nearly 1,000 settlements across 650 square miles, linked by an immense causeway system, which was mapped out with airborne laser instruments, known as LiDAR.

>The results of the LiDAR survey “unveiled a remarkable density of Maya sites” in Guatemala’s Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB) that “challenges the old notion of sparse early human occupation” in this area during the “Preclassical” period spanning 1,000 BC to 150 AD, according to a study published this month in Cambridge Core.

>The discovery sheds light on the people who lived in the bustling cities of this forested basin for more than 1,000 years.

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2022. DOI 10.1017/S0956536122000244