Laser technology has uncovered the largest and oldest Mayan temple ever found.
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For years, archaeologists have been scouring the ground, hacking through dense jungles in search of clues left behind by ancient civilizations like the Khmer Empire in Cambodia and the Maya in Mexico and Central America.
This meticulous work has spanned entire careers, with each discovery being the result of years of effort.
But now, archaeologists – or at least their advanced tools – are looking to the skies for answers.
A cutting-edge remote sensing method known as lidar, or light detection and ranging, can create intricate terrain models, uncovering mysteries normally hidden beneath dense tree cover and forests.
Laser mapping technology is accelerating archaeological discoveries, now unveiling the earliest and largest ceremonial structure ever constructed by the Maya, covering more land than even the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
"The site is so vast horizontally that it seems to blend with the natural landscape when you walk across it. The rectangular shape is nearly indistinguishable, but with lidar, it became clearly defined," said Takeshi Inomata, anthropology professor at the University of Arizona and lead author of a study published in *Nature* journal on Wednesday.
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"Without lidar, we likely would have recognized the site's importance eventually, but it would have required many seasons of painstaking ground mapping to fully uncover its significance," he noted.
Named Aguada Fénix, this previously undiscovered Maya site in Tabasco, Mexico, dates back to between 1,000 BC and 800 BC. The massive raised platform stands 10 to 15 meters above the surrounding terrain, with nine causeways radiating from it.
Inomata pointed out that its volume, at 3.8 million cubic meters, surpasses that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt (2.6 million cubic meters), though it is much shorter in height than the pyramid.
The platform was likely used for ritual purposes, with jade axes and other valuable artifacts discovered in its center, according to Inomata.
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"The ritual may have included processions along the causeways and large gatherings in the rectangular plaza. It likely served as a community hub, a place where people were drawn together to take part in its construction," said Inomata.
The Maya were a Mesoamerican civilization that thrived across Mexico and Central America from 2000 BC until the Spanish Conquest in the 16th Century. They are renowned for constructing towering stepped pyramids, such as those found at Chichen Itza.
A breakthrough moment.
Lidar has transformed archaeology in much the same way the advent of radiocarbon dating revolutionized the field in the 1940s, said Patricia McAnany, a Maya archaeologist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the research.
The technique uses laser pulses emitted from an aircraft or drone, with the reflected signals providing data. This information is processed to create terrain models by digitally removing vegetation from the images.
"Straight lines and corners in a bare-terrain model indicate features that are likely of human origin, rather than natural formations," McAnany wrote in her commentary on the study, which was also published in *Nature*.
Previously, mapping large ancient Maya cities like Tikal in Guatemala and Caracol in Belize took years of fieldwork, McAnany explained in the commentary.
"I’ve spent thousands of hours in the field, following a local machete-wielder who would cut straight paths through dense forest," McAnany recalled. "This creates a grid, and we archaeologists then walk through it to find structures. Once the corners, shapes, and heights of the constructions were revealed through more machete work, we could begin the mapping process."

"Lidar data from a single plane flight can provide more information than decades of traditional archaeological surveys could ever generate," she explained.
Collaborating with others.
This new discovery addresses a key question in archaeology: how did communal life evolve? Did it begin with people settling in small villages or with periodic gatherings for rituals such as religious ceremonies or astronomical events?
McAnany stated that it was once believed that sedentary life laid the foundation for ritual gatherings, but emerging evidence now suggests the opposite might have been true.
At this newly discovered site, the study found that the absence of residential platforms indicated that its inhabitants likely led a semi-nomadic lifestyle.

Inomata remarked that this discovery challenges the conventional belief that large-scale construction projects in ancient times required a powerful elite and social hierarchy.
No clear signs of social inequality, such as sculptures of high-status figures, were found at the site, Inomata noted. This suggests that the construction of Aguada Fénix occurred without the presence of a powerful elite.
"While there may have been leaders who played key roles in organizing and planning the work, the main driving force was the voluntary participation of the people in these projects. It highlights the potential of human collaboration, which doesn’t necessarily require a centralized government," Inomata explained.
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