Hidden Pre-Hispanic Roads at Machu Picchu Revealed by Laser Technology
More than 2.5 kilometres of previously undocumented pre-Hispanic roads have been identified near Machu Picchu using LiDAR, a laser-scanning technology that strips away tree cover to map the ground beneath.
Archaeologists found the ancient pathways running through the cloud forest near the Mandor wall, close to the 15th-century Inca citadel in Peru's Cusco region. The roads had been hidden for centuries under dense vegetation that made conventional surveying nearly impossible, according to HeritageDaily.
LiDAR — short for Light Detection and Ranging — works by firing rapid laser pulses from aircraft or drones and measuring how long they take to bounce back. The result is a detailed 3D map of the ground surface, even through thick canopy. It has become one of archaeology's most powerful tools for uncovering lost structures across Central and South America.
The discovery adds a new chapter to what researchers already know about Machu Picchu's surrounding network. Earlier LiDAR work at the site, reported by NBC News in 2022, revealed roughly a dozen structures within about 60 feet of the main ceremonial area of Chachabamba, a ritual complex on the outskirts of the citadel. Those earlier scans hinted at how much more the landscape held; the newly mapped roads extend that picture across a wider stretch of terrain.
ARTnews reported the findings on 11 August 2026, a day after HeritageDaily published its account.
The roads predate the Spanish arrival in South America and were almost certainly built by the Inca or earlier cultures in the region. Their exact purpose — ceremonial processions, trade routes, or administrative connections between settlements — will require follow-up fieldwork to determine. What the scans establish is that Machu Picchu was not an isolated mountaintop estate but part of a far more extensive built landscape than the visible ruins suggest.
For visitors who know Machu Picchu only as the stone terraces above the Urubamba River, the news is a reminder that the site still has secrets. The cloud forest that makes the citadel so atmospheric also buried the evidence — until a laser could see through it.
