Lidar + AI recognition might result in mapping everything out there. Researchers would have to spend time coming up with a way to rank potential sites for close examination instead of actually excavating things randomly
God I wish all those codices weren't burned. Or even that the surviving ones were made of sturdier material. Somehow even with all AI technology I'm not holding my breath for any digital reconstructions of those rotted lumps.
I agree with your point, but most Mayan cities in the region had been depopulated (not enough water is one theory) hundreds of years before colonization.