American students discover long-lost Mayan city hidden deep in Mexico’s forest.

According to the Independent, American students studied public data from laser scans of the Campeche region to discover the hidden world named “Valeriana”, with nearly 6,700 undiscovered structures.

Archaeologists are using laser-scanning lidar technology in Central America to study Mayan pyramids, ancient houses and other infrastructure.

Luke Auld-Thomas, a doctoral student at Northern Arizona University, analyzed data from a 2019 lidar project that monitored and measured CO2 in Mexican forests to see what lies beneath 50 square miles of Campeche.

He told the BBC: “I was on something like page 16 of the Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican environmental monitoring organization. »

He added: “The government was never aware of it, the scientific community was never aware of it. This really puts an exclamation point behind the statement that no, we haven’t found everything, and yes, there is a lot more to discover.

The study published in the journal Antiquity found that the lost city has all the characteristics of a classic Mayan political capital and a large city with pyramids, causeways connecting neighborhoods, two plazas and amphitheaters.

Researchers believe that Mayan civilizations collapsed starting around 800 AD because they were densely populated and unable to cope with the problems of climate change.