Remote sensing tools yield insights into abandoned pre-Columbian Mexican city

A McGill University researcher has discovered that Guiengola, a 15th century Zapotec site in southern Oaxaca, Mexico, which had been thought to be simply a fortress where soldiers were garrisoned, was in fact a sprawling, fortified city. It covered 360 hectares, with over 1,100 buildings, four kilometers of walls, a network of internal roads and a clearly organized urban layout with temples and communal spaces such as ballcourts, and the elites and commoners lived in separate neighborhoods.