Lasers reveal 3,000-year-old secret Mayan city with more than 6,500 structures

Scientists have uncovered a secret Mayan city hiding in Mexico, which once featured an urban landscape of more than 6,500 structures. The team used lidar technology to create three-dimensional models across 50 miles of land in Campeche, allowing them to map areas not visible to the naked eye. The method revealed a 21-square-mile metropolis with iconic stone pyramids, houses and other infrastructure that have been concealed for more than 3,000 years. There are hundreds of documented Mayan sites, but the newest find revealed that researchers aren't close to finding all the major Maya cities. 'Our analysis not only revealed a picture of a region that was dense with settlements, but it also revealed a lot of variability,' said the study's co-author, Luke Auld-Thomas, a doctoral student at Tulane University. 'We didn't just find rural areas and smaller settlements.