[soledades]

yes, that is the premise, but the article specifically does not present any evidence of that being the case, just a bunch of weasel words.

"...aerial laser maps reported by Estrada-Belli and colleagues have revealed large, interconnected Maya cities now obscured by forests in other parts of northern Guatemala (SN: 9/27/18). The next step, Estrada-Belli says, is to assemble an aerial laser map of at least 100 square kilometers around Tamarindito to see if it was built in relative isolation."

if they don't even know whether it was built in isolation, how could they possibly be in a position to make these kind of conclusions about how it came about?

hence, "theory."