Ancient Mayan drawings carved on the stone wall (Jun/iStock)

Researchers from many American universities, as well as those from France and Guatemala, discovered a vast, 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern Guatemala. The group used LiDAR to make the discovery.

LiDAR is a detecting technology that uses laser light rather than radio waves, much like radar. Because LiDAR can penetrate jungles and expose what lies below them, researchers chose to employ it.

In a press release, the researchers uncovered what they described as a vast ancient Maya civilization as they were mapping a portion of Guatemala.

The prehistoric civilization was made up of more than 1,000 settlements, the bulk of which was connected by multiple causeways and stretched across an area of about 650 square miles, as per their maps.

The fact that the people who once lived in the settlements had been closely packed defies theories that early Mesoamerican settlements tended to be sparsely inhabited.

It was reasonably easy for citizens of the civilization to travel to nearby villages thanks to the 110 miles of navigable causeways (cleared, raised beds used as highways). The researchers draw attention to the potential for group labor attempts that the transportation infrastructure presents.

Experts speculate that some of the settlements may have operated as concentrated hubs for politics, work, and entertainment based on the discovery of large platforms and pyramids in some of the communities.

Additionally, they say that a previous study found that some of the towns had ball courts that were used for a variety of local games. The researchers also found that the civilization's people had built canals and reservoirs to transport and store water for use during dry seasons.