Largest Known Maya Structure Found, More than 4,000 Feet Long and Nearly 3,000 Years Old. A giant platform nearly a mile long made of stone, clay and earth is both the earliest and largest known monumental structure constructed by the ancient Maya, dwarfing their biggest pyramids in magnitude, a new study finds. The people known as the ancient Maya lived in an area the size of Texas across what is now southern Mexico and northern Central America, including the modern countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. At its height, known as its Classic period, which spanned from roughly A.D. 250 to 900, the Maya arguably had the most advanced civilization in the Americas, raising cities known for their stone pyramids. Archaeologists long thought the Maya gradually shifted from a mobile way of life to permanent settlements during the Preclassic period that spanned from roughly 1800 B.C. to A.D. 250, emerging with villages during the Middle Preclassic from 1000 to 400 B.C. However, the discovery of major cities built during the Preclassic challenge this model. For example, the La Danta pyramid complex in the Preclassic city El Mirador rises 72 meters high with a base 500 meters by 300 meters large, dwarfing any Maya pyramids of later periods.
