Jungle Miracles

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New archaeological findings unveiled a vast network of Mayan cities and settlements in the jungles of northern Guatemala that showed the ancient civilization was more advanced than scholars have given it credit for, the Washington Post reported.

An archaeological team discovered more than 400 Mayan cities in the El Mirador jungle region dating back to around 1000 BCE. All these cities and settlements were connected by nearly 110 miles of “superhighways,” which researchers described as “the first freeway system in the world.”

In their paper, they explained that the findings were possible thanks to a special type of radar technology – known as liDAR, or “light detection and ranging” – that helped uncover ancient dams, pyramids, and ball courts hidden by the thick canopy.

Initially, the lack of abundant archaeological evidence had prompted historians to suggest that the Mayans were primarily hunter-gatherer societies during the mid- to late-Preclassic Maya civilization from 1000 BCE to 250 CE.

But liDAR images showed that the Mesoamerican society was very well-organized economically, politically, and socially during that period.

Lead author Richard Hansen, stunned by the findings, wondered how “one society living in a tropical jungle in Central America became one of the greatest ancient civilizations in the world (while) another society living in Borneo is still hunting and gathering in the exact same environment.”

Hansen and his colleagues noted that further study of El Mirador – considered the “cradle of the Maya civilization” – could provide an important marker in human history along with others such as the pyramids in Egypt.