Luke Auld-Thomas spotted the ancient Maya site in Campeche, overlooked by Mexican scientists, from old lidar data he was browsing on Google.

Archaeologists have found thousands of Maya structures and a lost city they named Valeriana in Mexico by using laser mapping technology, according to a new study.

Tulane researchers uncovered over 6,500 Maya structures in Mexico using lidar, revealing a complex settlement landscape and challenging previous assumptions about the Maya civilization’s urban and rural distribution.

A PhD student accidentally discovered a lost ancient Mayan city near Campeche, Mexico, using Google search and Lidar technology.

Researchers have named the new ancient city Valeriana, after a local lagoon. The discovery refutes previous assumptions within scholarly circles that the Tropics were where “civilizations went to die”,

Over 6,500 previously unknown Maya structures, including an entire city with towering pyramids, were revealed in southeast Mexico.

In recent years, LiDAR laser scanning has allowed researchers to analyze large swaths of densely forested land in Mexico in their search for undiscovered ancient settlements and structures, as opposed to conducting the time-consuming, on-the-ground assessments previously required for archaeological surveys.

Laser imaging of the rainforests of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula have turned up thousands of ancient Maya structures — and an entire previously unknown city, a new study has found. By flying

East of the town of Dos Lagunas, past the major highway cutting through Mexico’s south, the forest rises up in a dense wall of grasping roots, spindly branches and veils of brown and green. Beyond it lies the ruins of an old Maya city,

WIRED spoke with the researchers responsible for the discovery of Valeriana, a lost Maya city in the middle of the jungle of Campeche.