Exclusive: Laser Scans Reveal Maya "Megalopolis" Below Guatemalan Jungle
A vast, interconnected network of ancient cities was home to millions more people than previously thought.
Laser technology known as LiDAR digitally removes the forest canopy to reveal
ancient ruins below, showing that Maya cities such as Tikal were much larger
than ground-based research had suggested.
COURTESY WILD BLUE MEDIA/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
By Tom Clynes
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 1, 2018
In what’s being hailed as a “major breakthrough” in Maya archaeology, researchers have identified the ruins of more than 60,000 houses, palaces, elevated highways, and other human-made features that have been hidden for centuries under the jungles of northern Guatemala.
Laser scans revealed more than 60,000 previously unknown Maya structures
that were part of a vast network of cities, fortifications, farms, and highways.
COURTESY WILD BLUE MEDIA/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Using a revolutionary technology known as LiDAR (short for “Light Detection And Ranging”), scholars digitally removed the tree canopy from aerial images of the now-unpopulated landscape, revealing the ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed.
“The LiDAR images make it clear that this entire region was a settlement system whose scale and population density had been grossly underestimated,” said Thomas Garrison, an Ithaca College archaeologist and National Geographic Explorer who specializes in using digital technology for archaeological research.
Garrison is part of a consortium of researchers who are participating in the project, which was spearheaded by the PACUNAM Foundation, a Guatemalan nonprofit that fosters scientific research, sustainable development, and cultural heritage preservation.
More:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/
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Puzzler
Scientists find massive Mayan society under Guatemala jungle
This digital 3D image provided by Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation, PACUNAM, shows a depiction of the Mayan archaeological site at Tikal in Guatemala created using LiDAR aerial mapping technology. Researchers announced Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018, that using a high-tech aerial mapping technique they have found tens of thousands of previously undetected Mayan houses, buildings, defense works and roads in the dense jungle of Guatemala’s Peten region, suggesting that millions more people lived there than previously thought. (Canuto & Auld-Thomas/PACUNAM via AP) (Associated Press)
By Associated Press February 2 at 8:57 PM
GUATEMALA CITY — Researchers using a high-tech aerial mapping technique have found tens of thousands of previously undetected Mayan houses, buildings, defense works and pyramids in the dense jungle of Guatemala’s Peten region, suggesting that millions more people lived there than previously thought.
The discoveries, which included industrial-sized agricultural fields and irrigation canals, were announced Thursday by an alliance of U.S., European and Guatemalan archaeologists working with Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation.
The study estimates that roughly 10 million people may have lived within the Maya Lowlands, meaning that kind of massive food production might have been needed.
“That is two to three times more (inhabitants) than people were saying there were,” said Marcello A. Canuto, a professor of Anthropology at Tulane University.
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/scientists-find-massive-mayan-society-under-guatemala-jungle/2018/02/02/f4084488-0880-11e8-aa61-f3391373867e_story.html?utm_term=.41bcd38abb86
By JACEY FORTIN
FEB. 3, 2018
Tikal, home to temples and palaces, is one of the best known Maya sites in northern Guatemala.
Credit Justin Lane for The New York Times
They were hidden there, all this time, under the cover of tree canopies in the jungles of northern Guatemala: tens of thousands of structures built by the Maya over a millennium ago.
Not far from the sites tourists already know, like the towering temples of the ancient city of Tikal, laser technology has uncovered about 60,000 homes, palaces, tombs and even highways in the humid lowlands.
The findings suggested an ancient society of such density and interconnectedness that even the most experienced archaeologists were surprised.
“Everywhere that we looked, there was more settlement than we expected,” said Thomas Garrison, a National Geographic explorer and an archaeologist at Ithaca College. “We knew there was going to be more, but the scale of it really blew our minds.”
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/world/americas/mayan-city-discovery-laser.html
LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141978826
