Since 2009, lidar spatial imagery has been transforming the way that archaeologists approach settlement and landscape studies in the Maya lowlands. Lidar airborne scanning technology allows researchers to virtually peel back the dense canopy of the Maya jungle, revealing hundreds of thousands of ancient structures and landscape modifications. Deep in the hilly Puuc Region of the northern lowlands, a recent 240-sq-km lidar flyover has allowed archaeologists to confirm previous suspicions that the north was just as densely populated and architecturally complex as the south. This talk elaborates on the broader implications of lidar for understanding changes in human-environmental relationships and socio-political organization through a focus on the large site of Muluchtzekel (c. 500 BCE – 950 CE) and two much smaller sites, Xanab Chak and Cerro Hul, in the eastern Puuc.