The lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula were once home to many powerful Maya city-states. Today, sites such as Tikal, in Guatemala, and Calakmul, in Mexico, showcase the architectural accomplishments of these prosperous centres. The great temple-pyramids standing within them now pierce a lush jungle canopy, which can provide a sense that these settlements were islands of urbanism within an ocean of pristine rainforest. Survey work over the last decade or so has helped to reveal how effective the Maya were at taming this environment, though, with networks of road-like causeways stretching far into the jungle, while subtle irrigation and drainage systems enabled agriculture. Despite this wealth of new information, there was still a conspicuous blank on the archaeological map. An area of some 3,000km² within the Balamkú Biosphere Reserve in Mexico was totally devoid of any known Maya sites. This is in part because, even by the standards of the Yucatán Peninsula rainforest, the region is remote and hard to access.
Examining the area using modern satellite images reveals a more-or-less unbroken carpet of green. Seeing beneath this shroud is most easily achieved with LiDAR, a remote-sensing technique that employs aerial-mounted lasers capable of reaching the ground surface, allowing the tree cover to be virtually stripped away. Given the wide spread of Maya settlements across the lowlands, it seemed likely that something must exist within this void. At the same time, the area was simply too large for an archaeological project to be able to survey it all. Instead, success would depend on narrowing the options to the areas most likely to contain ancient urban sites. But where to start? This question was tackled by Ivan Šprajc, head of the Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies at ZRC SAZU, Slovenia. He is an archaeologist with over 30 years’ experience of working in the region, and a track record of rediscovering lost Maya cities.
Seeking settlement
‘I expected something to be there’, says Ivan. ‘One of the most suitable areas was a peninsula of elevated terrain projecting into an area of low-lying wetlands, the so-called bajos. This position seemed particularly suggestive because practically all major Maya centres are situated in the immediate vicinity of these bajos. Access to water was – and is – a crucial consideration in this environment. The whole Yucatán Peninsula is a relatively flat landscape that is almost entirely formed from limestone. As a result, karstic phenomena such as caves, underground rivers, and sinkholes are common. This, in turn, means that there is almost no reliable source of surface water. Perennial streams are practically non-existent, while the underground water-table is very deep, with depths ranging from 80m to 120m. This makes it inaccessible with the technology available to the Maya. The only source of freshwater is often the little lakelets that occur in the bajos, and most commonly form at its edges.’
Lascaux IV