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00:00It's unbelievable. As far as the eye can see. Just jungle. Jungle everywhere.
00:10I'm Albert Lin, engineer and National Geographic Explorer.
00:17And I'm passionate about the way new technology can help to reveal secrets of the ancient world.
00:25So we had this augmented reality platform built based off of the LiDAR data.
00:31And it should be able to tell us what's beyond the trees.
00:34You know, it says there's a massive temple just around the corner.
00:39Gosh, it's huge.
00:43Ah, it gives you like chills up your back.
00:47We just followed a map created by lasers in the sky and then bushwhacked for hours.
00:54Hours to this point to find this.
01:00This pyramid is just one of tens of thousands of new discoveries.
01:06Revealed by a new technology that's seen beneath this jungle canopy for the very first time.
01:16Allowing experts to create a treasure map of a lost world.
01:23It's like a magic trick.
01:26This is amazing.
01:28And it's transforming our understanding of one of history's most mysterious civilizations.
01:34The Maya.
01:35To me, the Maya have always been one of the most fascinating of all ancient civilizations.
01:51And the story that's emerging right now is set to rewrite the history books.
01:58Placing the Maya right up there with China and Egypt as one of the greatest ancient civilizations the world has ever seen.
02:08What I want to do is find out the very latest.
02:15I'm going to be one of the first to see the results of a groundbreaking research project.
02:20Wow.
02:21The biggest of its kind ever undertaken.
02:24You get a sense of how much is out there.
02:29With tens of thousands of new discoveries.
02:34Previously unknown cities.
02:36And startling conclusions for the entire archaeological world.
02:41The survey is the most important development in Maya archaeology in a hundred years.
02:48And I'm going to be finding out how Maya history is being unlocked through their writing.
02:53With the story of how an obscure royal dynasty known as the Snake Kings.
02:59Wrote to dominate a vast region of the Maya world.
03:02Through conquest, marriage and puppet kings.
03:08And I'm going to follow discoveries on the ground.
03:12Seeing treasures as they're being unearthed.
03:16Looks like it's flashly painted but it's 1400 years old.
03:29And I'm going to be one of the most challenging environments on the planet.
03:39Like me, Francisco is a National Geographic explorer.
03:44And he's been venturing into the Central American rainforest for 20 years.
03:53All to unlock the secrets of the ancient Maya.
03:58Francisco is trying to reach the completely unexcavated city of Xmacabatún.
04:05At its height, the Maya world encompassed a vast area of modern day Central America.
04:14Xmacabatún lay in its heartland.
04:17In the far northeast of what is today, Guatemala.
04:21This inhospitable jungle is one of the last frontiers of archaeological discovery.
04:31There are no roads here.
04:34No hotels.
04:36And few maps.
04:39But you've gone out over 281 people.
04:42Yes, thanks.
04:43Humidity, heat, and dense vegetation make this virtually impenetrable rainforest.
04:48Much of it, completely unexplored.
04:54And that means, for Francisco, there are secrets, just waiting to be found.
05:10I think I see something right over here. I think it's a mound.
05:16More than a thousand years ago, all this was once a city.
05:20But over time, Shemaka Batun has been overrun by the jungle.
05:30This is actually the roof of a room.
05:33This is Francisco's first season working here.
05:36He's the first archaeologist ever to attempt to excavate it.
05:40It's all there, actually. It's pretty good.
05:44Through the thick undergrowth, Francisco's trained eye can see a lost world.
05:50We're in the middle of the courtyard. You probably can't tell.
05:54But there's a rise all around us.
05:58You know, mound here, mound there.
06:01That's a bigger one.
06:03People lived here maybe 1,300 years ago
06:07with the children playing in the courtyard and all that.
06:10But you can't tell right now.
06:17The Maya emerged in the jungles of Central America 3,000 years ago.
06:23And for the next 2,000 years, they not only survived, but thrived.
06:28Building a truly amazing civilization within deep and seemingly isolated jungle cities.
06:37These Stone Age people created stunning works of art.
06:43Evolved one of the most sophisticated writing systems in history.
06:49And built some of the tallest pyramids in the New World.
07:02But the greatest mystery is how the Maya forged any civilization at all
07:08in such an unforgiving environment.
07:14Creating cities of such unimaginable scale and complexity.
07:17Entering the heart of Smaka Batun, vines cover a steep incline.
07:30I think we're very close to the main plaza.
07:33Because it's going straight up now.
07:35Wow.
07:49It looks like there's a big pyramid right here.
07:51It's kind of hard to see because of all the vegetation.
07:55Almost impossible to make out, a huge pyramid reaches towards the sky.
08:00From its throne room at the top.
08:07Kings, queens and priests.
08:11Presided over rituals to appease the gods.
08:16With human blood.
08:20Torture and human sacrifice were fundamental to Maya belief.
08:31It'll take years to uncover the remains of Smaka Batun from the jungle.
08:36Revealing the story of just one small piece of the Maya world.
08:44But thanks to technology, all that is changing.
08:48A new and incredibly ambitious research project is using lasers to create a treasure map of the Maya world.
09:03Revealing just what lies under the dense jungle canopy of northern Guatemala.
09:08Without ever having to set foot on the ground.
09:12This massive challenge has brought together more than 30 leading experts and archaeologists from Guatemala and overseas.
09:28With specialists in airborne laser technology to map the jungle.
09:32The project, called the Pakinam Lidar Initiative, is a survey of nearly a thousand square miles of Guatemalan jungle.
09:43It covers more than a dozen seemingly isolated Maya cities and huge areas of unknown wilderness.
09:51And it's blowing open everything we thought we knew about the Maya.
10:05San Diego, California.
10:20One, four, eight, one, one, five.
10:232,000 miles north of Guatemala.
10:26Up is mostly just Y, right?
10:27This is the place I work, and it feels a world away from the jungle.
10:34Maybe give it a little more time. Five seconds between cycles.
10:38Got it.
10:40Francisco Estrada Belli is one of the directors of the new research project.
10:44He's traveled to San Diego with fellow project director and archaeologist Tom Garrison.
10:50This is literally just the DSM that you're overlaying here.
10:53You're not using any of our satellite imagery or anything.
10:59The technology used in this project, called LiDAR, is revolutionizing archaeology.
11:08Airborne LiDAR works by firing laser pulses from a plane.
11:14And timing the light that bounces back billions of times over.
11:17I mean, just look at this speckled lighting that's hitting this pavement.
11:27You know, you see the leaves of the trees and their shadows.
11:30I'm less interested in the shadows of the leaves and more interested in the light that gets through.
11:35That's what we're looking for in the LiDAR data.
11:37And what we're left with, if we just stick with the bits of data that make it all the way to the ground, is a map of what's underneath all of that canopy.
11:46Minus one, four, eight, one, uh, five, five.
11:59The new map is still being analyzed.
12:01But with Tom and Francisco, I'm going to see it.
12:04With the help of my colleagues in San Diego, it has been visualized on a massive scale for the very first time.
12:10Now, take us in.
12:14There we go.
12:16The data here is with the vegetation on it.
12:18I mean, from above, you really don't see that much other than a few little pockets where the trees have cleared, right?
12:24But then when we go to the LiDAR, wow, that's incredible.
12:29Ah, it's amazing.
12:32Until the LiDAR survey, no one had any idea of what lay beneath most of the jungle.
12:37Now, they can see it all.
12:50It's like a magic trick.
12:52This, this is amazing.
12:54I mean, this is, this is the way of the future.
12:56This is what Francisco's overgrown city of Smaka Batun looks like from above.
13:14And what it looks like with the tree canopy removed.
13:15I, I didn't have a fraction of what we see in the LiDAR.
13:19A central complex with temples and palaces, surrounded by previously unknown structures, all built in the LiDAR.
13:25This is what Francisco's overgrown city of Smaka Batun looks like from above.
13:29All those in the Maia.
13:30The Maia.
13:31As Hes離.
13:32Can't see what it looks like with the tree canopy removed.
13:34I, I didn't have a fraction of what we see in the LiDAR.
13:38A central complex with temples and palaces, surrounded by previously unknown structures, all built by the Maia.
13:44surrounded by previously unknown structures all built by the Maya over a thousand years ago.
13:55Without a single vine being cut, all is laid bare.
14:02With the LIDAR results in, new discoveries are being made right across the Paten Survey area of northern Guatemala.
14:08There are entire cities we didn't know about.
14:14Entire cities that have never been found before that are all of a sudden being revealed in the Paten?
14:19Yes. I want to see. Let's go to the north. Let's go to the north.
14:25It's over there in that corner of the data set.
14:32There it is.
14:33Incredibly, this entire city has never been known about before the LIDAR project.
14:44Just one of tens of thousands of new finds.
14:49Over there, it's probably another big temple complex with a palace attached to it.
14:55Having discovered the city, Francisco has named it Ka-Nal-Na, meaning Celestial Palace.
15:06This survey is the most important development in Maya archaeology in a hundred years.
15:12This survey is a map to vast areas of the Maya world in northern Guatemala.
15:21And as the team knows only too well, buried within that world are hidden secrets waiting to be discovered and unearthed.
15:31Oh yeah. Oh. Oh boy.
15:34Back on the ground, in the jungles of northern Guatemala,
15:46archaeologist Francisco Estrada Belli is on the hunt for more lost treasures.
15:53Sixteen miles south of his new site of Ximacapatun is a place he's excavated for nearly 20 years.
16:00An equally remote Maya city called Holmul.
16:10Here, Francisco has made some incredible discoveries.
16:15Including an entire complex of royal tombs.
16:20And right now, he's on a trail of what could be another.
16:25Try not to fall into the hole.
16:30A tunnel leads deep into the heart of a pyramid, right in the center of Holmul.
16:43It's very narrow.
16:47Here, his team have opened up a previously unknown chamber.
16:51This is a cut in the floor.
16:54The Maya made this, presumably to place a burial here.
16:58There is a slight chance this might be a royal burial.
17:02It's definitely in a very prestigious location.
17:10For the Maya, burials within pyramids were reserved only for the most important people.
17:16And finding a royal tomb is incredibly rare.
17:26As Francisco's team searches for clues,
17:29out of the dust,
17:32something unexpectedly appears.
17:34We just came upon a plate that was face down.
17:44At first, it seems unremarkable.
17:48Then, Francisco turns it over.
17:51Looks like it's freshly painted.
17:54An offering.
17:55I am the first person, yes, to hold this, my hand, after 1,400 years.
18:03It's a clue.
18:05That there really might be an intact grave underneath.
18:20But a heavy slab of stone blocks their progress.
18:22I know.
18:25We don't want anything underneath to break.
18:44One wrong move now could be disastrous.
18:49It's nerve-wracking.
18:50All the signs point towards this being a high-status grave.
19:02But out here, human remains rarely survive the acidic limestone soil.
19:08There's more rocks.
19:16It's too late to investigate further.
19:18Francisco and his team return to their temporary camp.
19:25They'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what, if anything, is in the grave.
19:30Many archaeologists can spend a career without finding a royal Maya burial.
19:45But Francisco is hopeful.
19:48Because at Holmul, he has already discovered three.
19:52Three.
19:52In a secure laboratory, Francisco's team analyzes the remains of two Maya kings and a queen.
20:09Two generations of the same royal family, buried at Holmul, with treasures to match their status.
20:17A delicately illustrated vase.
20:19A delicately illustrated vase.
20:24And an exquisite jade amulet.
20:30Complete.
20:31With an inscription on the back.
20:33The Maya created what many consider to be the most sophisticated writing system in the entire ancient world.
20:46And they left inscriptions virtually everywhere.
20:51The challenge is deciphering what they mean.
20:54Simon Martin is one of the world's leading experts on Maya writing.
21:07When you look at Maya glyphs, you're sort of faced with a very daunting level of complexity.
21:14More than 800 characters blend pictures and syllables.
21:20The ability to read most of these words in their original language opens history.
21:27And the inscription on Francisco's amulet is part of one of the most extraordinary stories to have ever emerged.
21:34The first glyph refers to ownership, and essentially it says his jewel.
21:42The next one down is a personal name.
21:45And it's a royal name.
21:47And then finally here, we have the one that really puts the whole thing into context.
21:52We have the royal title of the snake kingdom.
21:56Quhul Qanol Ahau.
21:57The snake kings, a royal family that rose from obscurity to forge the closest thing the Maya ever had to an empire.
22:11There's really nothing else like them.
22:14They achieved a level of integration which no other Maya kings achieved.
22:20Until we could read Maya inscriptions, we didn't even know the snake kings existed.
22:26Now, thanks to their inscriptions, we know that they extended their power from the far north, in city after city, revealing just how far they spread.
22:45In 562, they even conquered Tikal, the greatest Maya city of all.
22:56And, it appears, the nearby city of Hulmul.
23:03On a monumental frieze, discovered by Francisco, there are inscriptions revealing how they exerted power.
23:09This is the statement of subordination to the snake kings.
23:18It literally reads,
23:20Yahao, Qanol Ahau.
23:23We are the vassals of the snake kings.
23:26And this is the snake head with this mild grin.
23:31Francisco's royal family were not snake kings themselves, but puppet rulers, under the snake's greater power.
23:47Alliances were often made through marriage, of snake princesses to local kings.
23:53With characteristically grisly ceremonies.
24:01Using a stingray spine, the king would draw blood from his penis.
24:08The princess would pierce her tongue, combining her blood with his.
24:14This powerful and sacred royal mixture, was then burnt, as an offering to invoke the spirits of the ancestors.
24:30Morning at Hulmul.
24:31And, it's time for Francisco's excavation team to see if they've really discovered another royal burial.
24:39This morning, my colleagues have been working on the burial since early.
24:44And, it looks like now it's exposed to the point that we can take a look.
24:50Back inside the pyramid.
24:53Francisco looks into the newly excavated tomb.
24:57Oh yeah. Oh. Oh boy.
24:59We have a complete skeleton.
25:02It appears to be in good condition.
25:05A female.
25:08Scattered amongst the bones, precious stones.
25:12There is a jade bead in the mouth area.
25:16That's clearly a status symbol.
25:20Remnants of a jade necklace.
25:23For the Maya, jade was more precious than gold.
25:27Incredibly, there's even a jade bead embedded in one of her teeth.
25:35There's no doubt in my mind that she was of royal status.
25:40The location of the tomb.
25:44The decorated offering.
25:47And the jade.
25:48Leave Francisco and no doubt that these really are the remains of a queen.
25:57We don't know her name.
26:00But from the nearby frieze, recording the list of Homul kings, we do know who her husband was.
26:06A king called Ka'anich Tahaltun, or Stone Fiery Torch, who ruled Homul in the early 7th century.
26:18Just when the snake kings were at the height of their power.
26:21It might be that the jade amulet was a gift from the snake emperor himself.
26:32Marking Homul's allegiance.
26:34And there's a possibility that the newly discovered queen could even have been a snake princess.
26:51Her own blood, once ceremonially mixed and burnt.
26:55I'm discovering that over decades, finds on the ground and the deciphering of the Maya code
27:05have been gradually developing a deeper understanding of the Maya.
27:10But now, technology from the sky is transforming what we can see of their ancient world in a moment.
27:18Giving archaeologists a new map.
27:22Pointing the way to literally thousands of new secret treasures.
27:25And it's even revealing new discoveries.
27:30In one of the greatest and most studied cities of the entire Maya world.
27:36Tikal.
27:43The city of Tikal was the largest and one of the most spectacular Maya cities of all.
27:51Located in the very heart of the Maya world.
27:54In the Paten region of present-day Guatemala.
28:01It has fascinated generations of archaeologists.
28:05Including Tom Garrison.
28:06One of the Lidar project leaders.
28:08We see buildings aligned to track the rising of the sun or aligned to the movements of Venus.
28:19Cosmically aligned.
28:20Like all Maya cities.
28:22Every building in the heart of Tikal has been extensively mapped.
28:25But hidden in the jungle, it has never been possible to see it in all its glory.
28:35Until now.
28:36So this is the world-famous Tikal.
28:44Yep.
28:44That's the way it looks now.
28:46Let's see Tikal naked.
28:48But now we've done it.
28:52Now we see it without the trees.
28:54This is amazing for Francisco and I because this is an iconic Maya site.
28:59We know this map.
29:00We can close our eyes and visualize this map as we've seen it on paper since the 1960s.
29:06I feel like I'm there a thousand years ago and the people are still there and just walking around.
29:18After more than a century of study, archaeologists thought they knew every inch of Tikal.
29:25But they were wrong.
29:28You see that structure right there?
29:30The LIDAR reveals a previously unknown pyramid hidden in plain sight, close to the very center of the city.
29:44That's got to set the entire archaeology community on a buzz.
29:48Mistakenly overlooked as a natural feature, the team thinks this could be an intact tomb of one of the richest Tikal kings.
29:56It's the most important discovery in central Tikal in decades.
30:00But there's more.
30:05Because analyzing the LIDAR data around Tikal, the project team has found not just one new building, but thousands.
30:15Stretching out over a far more extensive and previously unseen surrounding area.
30:21What we see in the LIDAR that we have now is that Tikal is bigger and maybe it's three times bigger than we thought, maybe it's four times.
30:37Newly discovered settlements and suburbs are appearing from nowhere, in every direction.
30:49It was thought Tikal was home to around 60,000 people.
30:52Now, the team estimates it could be a staggering quarter of a million, perhaps even more.
31:07Future work might yield even more surprises.
31:09Because settlement spreads so far into the jungle that it continues beyond the edges of the LIDAR survey itself.
31:22And Francisco believes the new study could multiply the size of Tikal even further.
31:27It's going to show that Tikal is actually much bigger than that.
31:31It's going to show that Tikal is actually much bigger than that.
31:32We'll see that this was the Maya megalopoly.
31:33Having seen what the LIDAR map is revealing on screen, I want to see some of the new discoveries for real.
31:54And that means getting out of the lab and into the jungle.
32:03It's unbelievable.
32:04As far as the eye can see, just jungle, jungle everywhere.
32:11And the most incredible thing is that you know that buried beneath this jungle canopy is the untold story of the Maya.
32:20From above, it's just green, but the LIDAR reveals what lies beneath.
32:25This is like an X-ray through the forest.
32:28You can make out these features that are clearly not natural.
32:32I'm heading to a place called Witsna, halfway between Francisco's new site of Smaka Batun and his ongoing excavation at Homol.
32:42Even after 20 years of studying this area, Francisco had no idea there was anything there at all.
32:52Until something showed up on the LIDAR data.
32:56What I'm interested in is another newly discovered pyramid.
33:00This time not in a city at all, but mysteriously out on its own.
33:06That's where we're going today.
33:21Out here, a helicopter can only get you so far.
33:27If I'm going to track down Francisco's new pyramid, I'll need to carry on by foot.
33:41I'm teaming up with a Guatemalan guide called Juan Pablo de la Cruz.
33:45Mucho gusto.
33:47Listo?
33:49Si.
33:50Vamos.
33:51Francisco has given me the pyramids coordinates, but there's no trail here.
34:03Juan has to cut a path through the jungle.
34:05Every step.
34:08Mile, after mile, after mile.
34:13You know, Juan grew up in these forests.
34:18It's almost like he was born with a machete in his arms.
34:26The pyramid is at the top of the highest hill in the area.
34:32A brutal climb.
34:38Everything here is trying to kill you.
34:40You've got the world's deadliest snakes hidden in these roots.
34:44Spiders the size of your fist everywhere.
34:48You've got a wasp that'll sting you and paralyze your lungs.
34:54And on top of it, it's so hot and impressively humid.
35:00You really can understand just how hard archaeology is in a country like this.
35:10Let's see if those snakes can get to my carbon fiber.
35:13The undergrowth is so thick that just 100 feet from where the pyramid should be, there's still nothing in sight.
35:31You've been hiking for hours.
35:35Around every turn, you think you're there, but you're not.
35:41But thanks to the lidar, I can see what the pyramid would look like if the jungle was taken away.
35:47So we had this augmented reality platform built based off of the lidar data.
35:55And it should be able to tell us what's beyond the trees.
35:59And then, boom!
36:02Right there.
36:04You know, it says there's a massive temple just around the corner.
36:08But you can't see it.
36:22Oh, my.
36:25Gosh.
36:26It's huge.
36:34Oh, it gives you like chills up your back.
36:38So overgrown that its outline is hard to make out even right in front of it.
36:46This is what I've been searching for.
36:49A Maya pyramid.
36:51Seven stories high.
36:54And completely unknown.
36:56Until the lidar survey.
37:01It's just one of an incredible 65,000 new features that have been revealed.
37:06It's simply mind-boggling.
37:07Just trekking out to one of them today tells me that it's going to take generations of scientific effort to be able to fully explore them all.
37:20We just followed a map created by lasers in the sky using a helicopter to get into the jungle.
37:30And then bushwhacked for hours to this point to find this.
37:40A group of people, they put their blood, their sweat, their tears, and possibly their lives into the creation of this pyramid.
37:47But even though this building was completely unknown to archaeologists, it's clear that someone has been here before.
38:00Looking for treasure.
38:01It's obviously been looted.
38:03So many of these sites have been looted over the years, but they don't really get it all.
38:08It's the archaeologists that come in and tell the real story.
38:11The greatest mystery though, is what this pyramid is doing here at all, in such a remote place.
38:25As well as Maya cities, the LIDAR map is revealing the spaces between them.
38:36And in what was always thought to be jungle wilderness, there are tens of thousands of completely unexpected discoveries.
38:45Containing revelations that are overturning some of the longest held assumptions about the Maya.
38:50This LIDAR data is essentially rewriting the history of the Maya.
38:57Yes.
39:04For decades, almost everything we know about the Maya has come from studying a handful of their seemingly isolated cities.
39:11And their remains that have been found within them.
39:13But the LIDAR project is giving archaeologists a vast map, not only of these cities, but of everything that lies between.
39:26And that's throwing up some massive surprises.
39:29Francisco's pyramid is one of the biggest.
39:32I never thought there would be a pyramid up there.
39:34You didn't know this existed before the LIDAR?
39:35No, no. Besides, I never thought of going up there.
39:37Because he believes it could be a watchtower.
39:42And that would support a new and radical idea about Maya warfare.
39:48Does the data show you that they were fighting more than we thought before?
39:52Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Way more than we thought.
39:57Before the new LIDAR survey, archaeologists found little evidence of large-scale Maya fighting at all.
40:03It was believed that wars were resolved through ritual capture and sacrifice of kings and enemies.
40:13But that's suddenly changing.
40:17Because the LIDAR is showing up defenses and fortifications everywhere.
40:22The whole ridge is fortified. They are protecting themselves here.
40:26Twelve miles to the west of Tikal, an immense and previously unknown fortress perched on a steep escarpment.
40:37This was a self-sustaining fortress. They were ready to be under siege here.
40:42And we had no idea any of this existed.
40:47There even seems to be a colossal earthwork surrounding the mighty city of Tikal itself.
40:52This is like the great wall of Tikal.
40:58That's incredible.
41:00Up to 15 feet high and thought to be more than 10 miles long.
41:04The wall is far more than an indication of Maya conflict.
41:08But also evidence of the ability of the Maya to tame the jungle around them.
41:12On a massive scale.
41:13Across what was thought to be jungle wilderness, the LIDAR team is discovering the sheer extent and complexity of the Maya civilization for the very first time.
41:30It has always been astounding to think that Maya could sustain such great cities in the jungle.
41:43But no one imagined that the space between the cities could possibly have been so heavily populated.
41:50These squares, these are all maze and rebuildings.
41:54You can just see when you peel the jungle off, look, it's just everywhere.
41:58So far, more than 60,000 previously unknown buildings have been counted.
42:04You get a sense of how much is out there.
42:09I mean, it seems like this whole zone was covered in human activity.
42:13Yeah.
42:14The whole jungle.
42:16What we thought were whole cities were really only the city centers.
42:20Now we can see a vast urban sprawl reaching into the jungle.
42:30This site, El Palmar, is 40 times bigger than we thought it was.
42:3440 times?
42:35Yeah.
42:39It's leading to overall population estimates for the Maya world that are almost beyond belief.
42:46How many people did they originally think existed in the Maya world?
42:51People estimated maybe there was one, two million.
42:55The team is now estimating that figure could be up to 20 million people.
43:10It's a number around half the entire population of Europe at the time.
43:14In an area one-thirtieth the size.
43:26For decades, the dense jungle has tricked everyone.
43:31It was thought that these cities were isolated.
43:33But the lidar is showing that it was simply wrong.
43:44Peeling back the canopy shows an incredibly complex and sophisticated engineering of an entire jungle world.
43:50Looking at the swampy valley surrounding Homo, Francisco sees evidence of agriculture on an astonishing scale.
44:00Those are channels.
44:03There's like a huge grid all over this place.
44:07And it goes out 20 kilometers to the north.
44:10Every inch of this wetland is cultivated.
44:13Thousands of acres, drained and irrigated, converted into a fertile bread basket that could supply food not only for Homo, but for the entire region around Tikal.
44:29So this whole thing would be farms.
44:32Like the Central Valley of California.
44:33Yes.
44:35And on a scale far greater than anyone ever thought before, networks of highways run through the jungle, connecting the cities.
44:52So these are causeways then?
44:54Yeah.
44:55The lidar with the ability to remove the jungle shows these are all over the place and they're connecting cities over vast distances.
45:03The Maya across the entire Patan had a network of superhighways.
45:08Yes.
45:10The lidar is revealing an engineered and managed landscape.
45:13With specialized areas of agriculture, able to supply the cities with food for a simply massive population.
45:24On an almost industrial scale.
45:27This is all a completely new story.
45:30Being told for the first time.
45:33Through lidar.
45:35The Maya have always been considered one of the great civilizations of the Americas.
45:49But the Pakunam lidar initiative is set to transform how they are thought about on a global stage.
45:55The team believes that the list of the world's greatest ancient civilizations, from Egypt to China, now has a new member.
46:10The Maya.
46:16And this is only just the beginning.
46:19So far, only a tenth of the entire target area has been mapped.
46:27Most still remains unseen jungle.
46:35As new lidar surveys are planned, there is the promise of yet more great discoveries to come.
46:41There's 20,000 square kilometers more that need to be explored.
46:49And there's going to be hundreds of cities in there that we don't know about.
46:53I guarantee you.
46:54To be continued..