Ancient Maya ruins in Mexico, not far from Valeriana

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Jungle of Secrets

Scientists use laser technology to discover a hidden ancient city in a rainforest in Mexico.

February 17, 2025
By Nina Strochlic

As You Read, Think About: How can technology improve the way humans explore?

Ancient secrets are hidden in the rainforests of Mexico. Cities filled with homes, palaces, and temples once stood there. They belonged to the Maya people, who formed a great ancient civilization. But those cities were abandoned more than a thousand years ago. In the centuries since, they were swallowed by the thick trees of the rainforest. 

Last October, scientists announced that they had discovered one of those lost cities in the Mexican state of Campeche (kahm-PAY-chay). Most Maya ruins are buried deep in the wilderness. The newly found site is located just minutes from a busy town.  

“It wasn’t deep in the jungle, it was just a stone’s throw from the road,” says Luke Auld-Thomas. He’s the scientist who realized the ruins were there.

Experts say there are likely many more Maya ruins waiting to be found.

Ahead of Their Time

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

The Maya Empire

The ancient Maya lived in an area that stretched from what is now Mexico to Central America. The first Maya settlements date back to about 1500 B.C.

The Maya were an advanced society. Their understanding of math and science was ahead of the times (see “Schooled by the Maya”). But the ancient Maya civilization collapsed about 1,100 years ago. (The Maya people didn’t disappear, though. Many of their descendants still live in the area today.)

Lasers Lead the Way

Over the years, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of many Maya structures. But finding clues in huge, dense jungles can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

That’s why scientists are using lidar to search for lost cities. The name is short for light detection and ranging. Planes with a special type of laser fly over a forest. The lasers shoot billions of pulses of light at the ground below. The technology allows scientists to “see” beneath the trees and create detailed maps of an area. 

Luke Auld-Thomas/Tulane University

This lidar map shows the locations of some of the ancient Maya structures found in Valeriana.

More to Come

A few years ago, Auld-Thomas was doing a Google search. He came across lidar images of an area in southern Mexico. He quickly realized that he was looking at the remains of a huge Maya settlement. Scientists named the site Valeriana.

Auld-Thomas worked with scientists in Mexico and the U.S. They determined that Valeriana was once home to up to 50,000 people. They lived during the peak of the Maya civilization, from 250 A.D. to 900 A.D. 

So far, Auld-Thomas and the team have identified the remains of nearly 7,000 homes, pyramids, dams, and other structures. Auld-Thomas has never set foot in the forest. He’s explored Valeriana only on his computer. He says tools like lidar can uncover endless secrets of the Maya. 

“You will be amazed at how much there is to discover just beyond where everybody has been looking,” he says. “There is so much left to find and so much left to learn.”

Schooled By the Maya

Here’s a look at all the subjects the Maya mastered centuries before you learned them in school.

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SCIENCE

Hundreds of years before the telescope was invented, the ancient Maya tracked the movements of the moon, sun, and planets. They used the information they gathered to create a 365-day calendar based on Earth’s orbit around the sun.

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MATH

Their system of numbers was one of the first to use symbols to represent zero.

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WRITING

The Maya created one of the first advanced writing systems in the Americas. The system included about 800 hieroglyphs, or pictures and symbols that represent words.

  1. How does lidar help scientists search for lost cities? 
  2. Why do you think Luke Auld-Thomas says “there is so much left to find”?
  3. Based on the article and the sidebar, “Schooled by the Maya,” describe two ways the Maya were ahead of their time.
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