Maya people in what’s now northern Guatemala built surprisingly extensive defensive structures and roads as part of political systems featuring interconnected cities, starting at least several hundred years before the rise of Classic Maya society, an international team reports in the Sept. 28 Science. Laser technology shot down that scenario by gazing through forests and vegetation at 10 Maya sites — as well as in two areas with signs of Maya-era activity but no named sites — dating from a couple hundred years before the start of the Classic period to near its end. Although sustainable cultivation techniques appear to have been standard for the ancient Maya, farmland near the largest Maya cities would not have provided enough food for local populations, the researchers say.