In the 21st century, venturing to affirm that not all places on Earth have been discovered seems a safe bet. In 2024, A doctoral student from Mexico discovered a great city immersed in the rainforest. And, sometimes, a computer can be more powerful than a group of explorers willing to travel the jungle with their machetes.
The man who has made this finding possible is called Luke Auld-Thomas, a doctoral student at the University of Tulane. It all started as unexpected as possible, that is, with a quick search on Google. “I was on page 16 of a Google search and I found a laser studio Made by a Mexican environmental monitoring organization, ”he says in the BBC.
What is Valerian, the city discovered by Luke Auld-Thomas in Mexico?
When we talk about Valeriana we refer to a city that encompasses around 16.6 km2 and consists of more than 6,700 buildingsamong which pyramids, squares, roads and a ball field stand out. It is estimated that the population could have been around 30,000 and 50,000 people, all of them living in the years 800 AD
MAYAN CIUDAD VESTOS.
This is described by Luke Auld-Thomas, main responsible for the discovery: “The oldest of the two monumental enclosures of Valeriana has all the characteristics of a classical Mayan political capital: closed squares connected by a wide road; pyramidal temples; a ball game; A reservoir formed by the Dam of a stream (a seasonal water course) ”.
With this finding, the theory that Mayan civilizations were isolated is questioned. These urban settlements, some connected to others, make possible the vision that the Mayan people were interconnected. Cities like Campeche, Calakmul, Oxpemul and Becán show it.
