Two November 2025 studies focused on archaeological features too large to understand as isolated objects. At Aguada Fénix in southeastern Mexico, researchers used detailed landscape data and excavation to argue that a vast early monumental complex expressed a shared cosmological design. Near Durrington Walls in Wiltshire, England, a research team reported new work on a large ring of pits around a Late Neolithic ceremonial landscape. Both cases show how mapping can reveal relationships that are difficult to see from the ground, but the meaning of those relationships remains an interpretation.
Aguada Fénix as a landscape-scale design
Aguada Fénix was built around 1000 BCE in what is now Tabasco, Mexico. Its enormous raised platform, causeways and associated features were already known from earlier research. In a November paper in Science Advances, Takeshi Inomata and colleagues examined a wider configuration that included alignments, channels and a central architectural group. They proposed that the site can be read as a “cosmogram” – a built representation of a particular ordering of the world – expressed at more than one scale.
The evidence includes spatial arrangement, excavated offerings, colour traces and alignments. The cosmogram is the authors’ interpretation of those patterns, not a label carved by the builders. The researchers also discuss collective construction and ritual participation as alternatives to assuming that the monument required a highly centralised state or coerced labour. The site does not prove that every worker acted voluntarily; rather, it challenges simple models that equate monumental construction with one political system.
The great pits near Durrington Walls
Researchers have mapped a broad circle of large pits around Durrington Walls, close to Stonehenge and Woodhenge. A 2025 report in Internet Archaeology describes follow-up work from 2021 to 2025, including geophysical survey, coring, sediment analysis and dating. Some pits are exceptionally large, and the arrangement appears to form a deliberate feature in a wider Neolithic landscape. The authors argue that the evidence supports a major human-made pit structure associated with Durrington Walls.
The proposed arrangement is not a complete excavated circle. Much of the evidence comes from remote sensing and samples from selected features, and the full construction sequence is still being investigated. Researchers have considered whether the pits might have had practical, ceremonial or boundary functions, but no single use has been demonstrated for every feature. The cautious conclusion is that they are a substantial, patterned part of the landscape, not that their builders’ intentions are fully known.
Why scale changes the questions
LiDAR and geophysical survey help archaeologists detect broad shapes and buried features without excavating every metre. Excavation and laboratory work then test what those shapes are made of, when they formed and whether they belong to the same period. Remote sensing alone can reveal a pattern but cannot explain its purpose. At both sites, interpretation becomes stronger when mapping is combined with excavated context, dating and comparison with nearby monuments.
These studies also show why “monument” need not mean a single building. Routes, earthworks, deposits and open spaces can work together. Read more about Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape, or explore Maya cities and archaeological evidence.
Frequently asked questions
Does Aguada Fénix definitely represent the Maya cosmos?
The study argues that its alignments, deposits and landscape layout form a cosmogram. That is an evidence-based interpretation, not a directly recorded statement by its builders.
Were the builders of Aguada Fénix forced to work?
The monument alone cannot establish individual labour conditions. The researchers argue that collective ritual and participation may help explain construction without assuming coercion.
Have archaeologists excavated every pit at Durrington Walls?
No. The structure is studied through mapping, geophysics, coring and selected excavations; the complete feature has not been excavated.
Can LiDAR or geophysics tell archaeologists what a monument was for?
They can identify shapes and buried features. Purpose requires additional evidence from excavation, dating, materials and comparison with other sites.