Survey: ‘Super Highways’ in Ancient Maya Cities, revealed in the latest survey

GUATEMALA CITY, Reuters – Nearly 1,000 Maya settlements were discovered in a new high-tech survey. The study included 417 previously undiscovered cites that were linked to what could be the first global highway network. These cites were hidden for millennia behind dense jungles in northern Guatemala and southern Mexico.

According to Monday’s statement from the FARES anthropological research foundation in Guatemala, the LiDAR study team made the discovery.

The journal Ancient Mesoamerica published the findings for the first time last month.

The newly identified structures were constructed centuries before the Maya largest city-states, which brought about major human achievements in writing and math.

LiDAR technology uses planes that shoot pulses light into dense forests. It allows researchers to remove vegetation and map the structures below.

According to researchers, the most important detail revealed by the new analysis is the first ever extensive system of stone “highways” or super-highways in ancient history.

Up to 110 miles (177 kms) of spacious roads have been discovered so far. Some are around 130 feet wide (40mi) and some are elevated up to 16ft (5m).

Researchers have identified pyramids, ball courts, and significant water engineering as part of the Cuenca Karstica Mirador–Calakmul study. This includes dams and reservoirs.

Richard Hansen, the lead researcher, said that “it shows the economic and political complexity of what was occurring simultaneously across this entire region.”

Recent finds date back to the so-called mid to late pre-classic Maya period, which was between around 1,000 and 350 BC. Many of these settlements were believed to have been controlled by El Mirador, the modern metropolis. This was five centuries prior to the civilization’s peak when many major urban centers flourished in present-day Mexico.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu, David Alire Garcia and Deepa Babington. Editing by Deepa Babington