Archaeologists have been busy lately

By: Brittany Da Silva

 

While great archaeological findings may be far and few between, they are certainly proving to be well worth the wait. A group of divers have recently discovered what is believed to be the largest flooded cave on Earth in eastern Mexico, with the cave coming in at measurements of 347 kilometers.

 

The Gran Acuifero Maya (GAM) is a project that studies and preserves the subterranean waters within the Yucatan Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico. These divers have been exploring a series of underwater channels for months, before stumbling upon this great cavern. Of the 200 different archaeological sites discovered near the beach resort of Tulum alone, approximately 140 are Mayan.

 

The Yucatan Peninsula region is known as an area that was dominated by Maya civilization, as many monumental relics of the Maya culture have been unearthed here. The Mayan culture flourished in this region between approximately 1,000 BC and 900 AD. Researchers hope that further exploration of the cave will lead to more findings that will shed some light on this ancient culture.

 

Divers have already made big discoveries within the cave, including the remains of ancient humans, as well as animals from the Pleistocene period. Among the animal remains found were the bones of giant sloths, ancient elephants, and extinct bears. A discovery of this magnitude is incredibly exciting for the archaeological industry.

 

In addition to the discovery of this great cave, researchers have also recently spotted a large Mayan city, which had previously gone undetected. Utilizing state-of-the-art aerial mapping techniques, tens of thousands of unnoticed Mayan houses, buildings, pyramids, and defense posts are now visible within Guatemala’s Peten region. There was 2,100 square kilometers of mapping done, with about 60,000 new individual structures found. This vastly expands the area that has been proven to be previously occupied by the Maya.

 

This suggests that millions more people lived within the deep jungles of Guatemala’s Peten region than was originally believed. With this new information, it seems that about 10 million people may have lived in the Maya Lowands. This means that two to three times more people were living in this region than what was previously understood.

 

Archaeologists now believe that the agriculture of the Mayan people was more intensive than was believed, meaning the civilization itself was very sustainable. These people cultivated as much land as possible, even draining swamp areas that have since not been considered worth farming. Newly discovered defensive fences, ditch-and-rampart systems, and irrigation canals also suggest that the Mayas were a highly organized, yet ancient, workforce.