Southern area of the Petén, Guatemala

This project aims to study the archaeological sites in the Guatemala Maya Biosphere Reserve, especially those located on its southeast limits next to Lake Yaxhá. Two study areas have been marked on the map to give you an idea of their location within the Petén (Fig.2). 

Image caption: Map of Mesoamerica with a 20km buffer around Lake Yaxhá and with a zoom in to some of the known Maya
sites located inside that area, classified based on their accessibility by road. Map also displays two areas of study.
Credits: Cristina Gonzalez-Esteban using QGIS software

Some of these areas grew in population during the Middle Preclassic Maya period (1000-350BC) –primarily Yaxhá and Holtun– but it would not be until the Early Classic Period (250-600
AD) when the Eastern Lowland Petén experiences its greatest power reaching Yaxhá the size of the third biggest city of the time. Surrounding sites also had the largest flourishment during the Middle or Late Classic Period (c.600-900 AD) such as La Blanca or San Clemente (c. 250-950AD) (Mendoza 2001).

However, once the Terminal Classic and beginning of the Postclassic period arrives, the activities in these areas clearly decay until the point of abandonment of regular population around 900-950AD, a period of time associated with the Classic Maya Collapse (Hermes et al. 1999). The eventual presence of occupation can still be seen during the Postclassic period in sites such as Yaxhá or La Blanca, the latter housing a large number of refugees from the smaller settlements around the city right after Maya Collapse and up until around the 11th century AD (Vidal-Lorenzo and Muñoz-Cosme 2007).

No continuous usage of these lands took place afterward until they were “re-found” by European antiquarians during the late 19th or early 20th century. This inactivity has meant that the surviving remains are only covered by vegetation, not by new constructions. This highly benefits the proposed project since the technology that we will use (LiDAR and Photogrammetry) create an identical copy of the real world in a digital format (digital twin). Therefore, this area and these sites are the ideal places to develop this project, compare the different technologies and learn about the impact that they can have when used in a cost-effective manner. Furthermore, this “isolated” status of the sites will evolve from a unique point of view of the local communities regarding these “abandoned” or unoccupied areas and how foreign researchers interpret and analyse the remains and how that impacts or not in the daily activities and ideology of their people.