Lidar Finds Overgrown Maya Pyramids

AlejoHausner writes "A team of archaeologists scanned the jungle of Belize with lidar. Although most of the reflections came from the jungle canopy, some light reflected off the ground surface. Using this, suddenly hidden pyramids, agricultural terraces, and ancient roads are revealed, at 6-inch resolution. The data allowed the archaeologists to bolster their theory that the ancient city of Caracol covered more than 70 square miles of urban sprawl and supported a population of over 115,000."

Comments

Other uses for this technology

[adeft]

Seems like it might be useful for finding downed aircrafts and other missing objects....maybe even people?

Re:Other uses for this technology

[biryokumaru]

Meh, I think people are too squishy. They'd probably blend in with plants and stuff. Aircraft should work, though.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[pyroclast]

Seems like it might be useful for finding downed aircrafts and other missing objects....maybe even people?

Great thought, but the time to process lidar data takes a while. So planes and objects sure, but even the logistics to get this done takes time. Not sure about people, due to resolution over a vast area and again logistics. The bare-earth relief (which strips away a degree of vegetation) lidar offers is incredible. Cartographers and geologist have only recently really taken advantage of the technology. But in time and $, these other uses could definitely be considered, especially when resolution and processing is more developed.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[Ukab the Great]

LIDAR could be used to find Waldo and Jimmy Hoffa.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Or somebody that found your post funny.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[Aeros]

I dont think the technology is that advanced

Re:Other uses for this technology

[Message]

The summary alluded to this but mostly what you get is reflection off the canopy... when you start talking dense jungle.. triple canopy type areas then this is not going to be effective...

Re:Other uses for this technology

[tokul]

Seems like it might be useful for finding downed aircrafts and other missing objects....maybe even people?

You could also try finding out microbes with magnifying glass. Mayan pyramids are 10 times bigger than normal humans. downed aircraft looks like lots of garbage scattered in large area.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[ooshna]

Seems like it might be useful for finding downed aircrafts and other missing objects....maybe even people?

You could also try finding out microbes with magnifying glass. Mayan pyramids are 10 times bigger than normal humans. downed aircraft looks like lots of garbage scattered in large area.

Only 10x bigger hell you could use this to find a Volkswagen Beetle then.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[Mabbo]

Processing the data takes a while- today. In the 80's, MP3 compression was good, but took too long to process for consumer products.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[nitehawk214]

Mayan pyramids are 10 times bigger than normal humans.

I think you are off by a few orders of magnitude.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[fmoc-86]

If it did, we should dump the technology as useless.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is weird seeing MP3 wasn't even a standard until 1991, and not fully finalised until 1992.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[tokul]

I think you are off by a few orders of magnitude.

Mayan. Not Egyptian. Maybe I've confused bigger pyramids with platform mounds. I imagined Mayan pyramid as artificial hill and not as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chichen-Itza_El_Castillo.jpg

Did not read TFA, but that lidar should be set to look for surface anomalies. Maybe for hills with solid stone objects on top or for hills with four rounded corners.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[nharmon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Real-time_Cueing_Hyperspectral_Enhanced_Reconnaissance

Re:Other uses for this technology

[jd]

Why do you think it took so long to decode? The code had no idea what to do.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[jd]

When working in or around a reflective medium, it is helpful to change the frequency to one that doesn't create so much noise. (RADAR became much more useful over water and in bad weather when the wavelength was shortened.) If something that made the canopy transparent but interesting objects below clear was an easy problem, it would have been done already, rather than relying heavily on computational analysis. However, nothing wrong with analytical techniques, which would still be very useful if a better tuning were found.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[SteveFoerster]

It's amazing what names people will come up with to get a cool sounding acronym....

Re:Other uses for this technology

[BobMcD]

I built an irony detector, but it only detects 'everything but irony'.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[Onymous Coward]

Hm, the article says they did the lab processing in 3 weeks. I'm guessing this stuff lends itself to parallel processing — I wonder if they used that.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[skastrik]

Seems like it might be useful for finding downed aircrafts and other missing objects....maybe even people?

It might ... maybe.

Re:Other uses for this technology

[tehcyder]

It's amazing what names people will come up with to get a cool sounding acronym....

Americans, you mean.

Cool.

[2names]

Now find Atlantis.

Re:Cool.

[c4tp]

I was about to say, if Indiana Jones had LIDAR, those movies would be a lot shorter.

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

Now find Atlantis.

You mock, but the discoveries of megalithic structures over the past twenty years have called into question a lot of our assumptions about the earliest civilizations with technology. There are rock carvings being discovered in the Southern part of Africa that show very advanced understanding of astronomy, geography and time measurement that appear to be over twenty thousand years old which is much, much earlier than previously thought.

If we can ever get scientists to be able to really research the pyramids and nearby structures without the dictatorial control of the Egyptian government, there is reason to believe that there are references to sophisticated understanding of astronomy going back over fifty thousand years.

When I worked at the University of Chicago, I used to hang with people from the Oriental Institute. From them, I learned just how shaky a lot of the theories regarding Early Egyptian culture really are, including but not limited to how in the hell the pyramids were built. One of the foremost Egyptologists in the world once confirmed to me that the accepted theories are clearly ridiculous, that the notion that you can drag, or roll on logs, granite blocks weighing up to 100 tons for several miles, and then erasing every sign of the way in which they were moved, is just nonsense. Further, he'd like to know, how in the hell were they able to move those stones over 100 feet in the air to place them at the top of the pile?

This gentleman, now dead, explained that Egyptology specifically, and archeology generally, are so political that any theory or work done outside the mainstream is killed before it can even be peer-reviewed. This guy, a professor emeritus at the time, told me he'd had a 20 year correspondence with crypto-archeologist Graham Hancock and he was careful to tell me that though he disagreed with most of Hancock's assertions, that some of them deserved much closer consideration. And it's not only academic politics that have shaped our "consensus" regarding those civilizations. Religious and political forces have played an even greater role in making sure that the accepted history supports certain orthodoxies.

Atlantis? Well, probably not, but once you get past 50,000 years it's not at all impossible that there was a relatively advanced civilization on this planet that subsequently disappeared. Almost every native culture on Earth has legends about a "golden age" when a more advanced civilization existed, which then disappeared during a subsequent "dark age".

Re:Cool.

[WED Fan]

Screw Atlantis, I left a prototype G4 phone lying around, can it help me find that?

Re:Cool.

[2names]

I'm not mocking at all. My original post was meant to be serious. It's not my fault that people thought it was funny.

Now get off your educated ass and find Atlantis, dammit.

Re:Cool.

[gyrogeerloose]

once you get past 50,000 years it's not at all impossible that there was a relatively advanced civilization on this planet that subsequently disappeared.

You don't even have to go back that far. The Minoan people of ancient Crete were well on the way to an industrial revolution of of their own that predated that of England by a couple of thousand years. If it wasn't for an inopportune volcanic eruption which completely wiped the Minoans out back around 1400 BCE, we might have had electronic computers by Roman times and those flying cars and jet packs we all wish for by now.

Re:Cool.

[G00F]

he disagreed with most of Hancock's assertions, that some of them deserved much closer consideration. And it's not only academic politics that have shaped our "consensus" regarding those civilizations. Religious and political forces have played an even greater role in making sure that the accepted history supports certain orthodoxies.

Do you have any that you can share? Any specifics?

I would like to know more than just what "lies my teacher told me" kind of books show. History is important, and unfortunately are rewriting to suit the winners, usually with political/religion goals. I didn't think discovery was that harsh, although suspected it played a roll.

So please impart with us more than a simple "the truth is out there" . . .

Re:Cool.

[Locke2005]

The Egyptians were experts in using water. Easy to level the base of the pyramids, just flood the whole area on a calm day, and mark the water level. Likewise, why drag/roll stones for miles when you can just build a canal and float them to the work site? With use temporary dykes and thousands of people to pump water up hill, you could practically float them into place and drop them. Of course, there would be no trace left of temporary systems put in place to move stones, be they canals or ramps, any more than there are traces of scaffolding around the great cathedrals.

I also find silly our clinging to the belief that there was absolutely no interaction between Egyptian and South American civilizations, despite growing evidence of "native" South American plants showing up in ancient Egypt. It seems like blatant Euro-centricism to assume that Europeans were the only ones capable of "discovering" new continents, especially since these continents were already inhabited by other peoples!

Re:Cool.

[Locke2005]

I don't think LIDAR works underwater. Try SONAR instead.

Re:Cool.

[DiegoBravo]

> Almost every native culture on Earth has legends about a "golden age" when a more advanced civilization existed, which then disappeared during a subsequent "dark age".

This idea appeared and appears every time after the war, specially in conquests with the resulting establishment of an oppressive regime. With time, it becomes part of the "legendary history" and conforms the roots of many independence movements and nationalisms.

Re:Cool.

[Chris Burke]

The Minoan people of ancient Crete were well on the way to an industrial revolution of of their own that predated that of England by a couple of thousand years. If it wasn't for an inopportune volcanic eruption which completely wiped the Minoans out back around 1400 BCE,

A volcano... or the horrific results of their experimentation with bio-engineering and the creation of a man-bull hybrid?!

Food for thought.

Re:Cool.

[Whatshisface]

And we would have been only 20 years away from cold fusion and unlimited free power.

Re:Cool.

[DerekLyons]

There are rock carvings being discovered in the Southern part of Africa that show very advanced understanding of astronomy, geography and time measurement that appear to be over twenty thousand years old which is much, much earlier than previously thought.

[[citation needed]] An academic one showing how they determined without question that they had 'advanced' knowledge and discussing how the carving were dated. Anything less gets you filed with von Däniken and Art Bell.
 

If we can ever get scientists to be able to really research the pyramids and nearby structures without the dictatorial control of the Egyptian government, there is reason to believe that there are references to sophisticated understanding of astronomy going back over fifty thousand years.

[[citation needed]] See the restriction above as to proving that there are actually reasons to believe such thing.

Re:Cool.

[Sleepy]

It would be more accurate to say your history books are full of mistruths, but if you want examples, just pick nearly any thing from a high school history book... and then REALLY research it.

1) We're all told that Benedict Arnold was simply a traitor to the American Revolution... but not that he was mistreated prior to that. (note: I'm not drawing judgment, these are simply facts).
2) We're all told that the "Americas" were sparsely populated by a few tens of thousands - not millions - of "natives". The "Trail of Tears" gets about 1/2 page coverage - scant compared to other 19th and 10th century genocides..
3) General Custer died a hero, and was NOT a coward who engaged in genocidal killings of women and infants.
4) Jesus was blonde, blue-eyed, and never took a wife

I'm just rattling off 4 I could think of inside of a few seconds.

(And to any perceived anti-US bias comments, it's untrue to suggest that. I happen to be most familiar with my own culture and therefore capable of poking holes in the lies it teaches. Every culture is guilty of this, but I can't be expected to have the same level of familiarity with those other cultures. Whatever, most people get it right?)

Re:Cool.

[natehoy]

Ah, so THEY are the originators of ManBearPig!

Those crazy Minoans, they got exactly what they deserved.

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

Do you have any that you can share? Any specifics?

Yes.

There was never a Jewish "King David". All of the main characters in very early Jewish culture were actually Egyptians, including, of course, Moses.

And Jesus was from a wealthy and powerful family and actually had a claim to the throne. He may have even been related by blood to Cleopatra.

Regarding King David: all of the stories about King David have no basis in archeological record. But, there is an Egyptian character of an earlier period with exactly the same history, including the names of the people in his court, his association with a "star" (as in "Star of David") and a city (as in "City of David"). This, the archeological record actually confirms.

Some interesting reading about these issues can be found in the books of Ralph Ellis. Another researcher who academics publicly label as a "kook" while begrudgingly accepting his conclusions in private.

Re:Cool.

[DaveGod]

Never mind technology, look at behaviour. Anything we don't understand is at best disregarded as "ritual" and at worst some elaborate fantasy is concocted that we don't have, nor could possibly hope to obtain, any evidence to support. (Not that I can be bothered to put in some evidence to support this argument, but this is /. after all).

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

just flood the whole area on a calm day

Flood the entire plain of Giza to a hundred feet?

Come on.

Re:Cool.

[bluie-]

Or! The total collapse of the ecosystem and biodiversity could have happened thousands of years ago. Then again, it would be cool if they had gotten past all of those problems, so we'd all be happily enjoying clean cold fusion and colonizing space by now ;)

Re:Cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, there would be no trace left of temporary systems put in place to move stones, be they canals or ramps, any more than there are traces of scaffolding around the great cathedrals.

Uh, dude, there ARE traces of scaffolding around the great cathedrals. The post holes are easily found, and will still be there in ten thousand years except where other construction obliterates them.

Or were you just trolling?

Re:Cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Minoan people of ancient Crete were well on the way to an industrial revolution of of their own that predated that of England by a couple of thousand years. If it wasn't for an inopportune volcanic eruption which completely wiped the Minoans out back around 1400 BCE,

A volcano... or the horrific results of their experimentation with bio-engineering and the creation of a man-bull hybrid?!

Food for thought.

Indeed my friend... Indeed.

The very thought of one of those lumbering horrors once again sallying towards an unholy intercourse of man and God allows me no respite.

Though, within the recourse of our mind we might escape for moments at a time, the quickening of a doleful apocalypse is upon us, and it's name is Lazarus Debovinica: Doomsayer of the now.

Fear not for mere friends, as their suffering shall pass in a spark of agony, bodies shriveling into rounded husks of carbon. No, it is the reticent, the constantly wary who shall feel the brunt of that infernal gaze. Those well-prepared extend their lives to witness this hell. Such is the curse of we who are burdened to witness the rancor of the bull-man.

Tear your bed-cloths quickly asunder, and make of them a sack. Do not bring your family, lest they too live beyond the death of their souls and wander as hapless zombies near seas of blood.

No, it is only we, we who are burdened with this knowledge, who must walk upon the cracked remains of homes and bathhouses. Fear not now, we travel to place beyond such things.

The bull-man knows no emotion, for he is the arbiter of this intimate nightmare. His steaming ropes of sorrow will weigh upon the very depths of your compassion, and you will necessarily capitulate to the fibrous brown pyramids, his hidden masses softly murmuring with escaping gases, waiting in the deepest jungle...

Re:Cool.

[Monkeedude1212]

Theres also evidence of Ramps around a few pyramids, (though not all, and none of the great ones of Giza I believe).

I think he might have been trolling a bit, their brick wasn't just sand and water, it was a carful mixture, including wheat. A lot of preparation went into preparing the stones, so that they were so strong, which is why they are still standing to this day. Also, the way everything is assembled brick by brick, you'd wonder why the base wouldn't be one giant piece, using his theory.

Re:Cool.

[drinkypoo]

With use temporary dykes and thousands of people to pump water up hill,

College towns tend to have good beer, which I gather was very important to the Egyptian people and the pyramid laborers in particular, but otherwise I fail to see how LUGs are going to help us here. And I don't mean Linux Users Groups.

Re:Cool.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It seems like blatant Euro-centricism to assume that Europeans were the only ones capable of "discovering" new continents, especially since these continents were already inhabited by other peoples!

Is it also blatant Euro-centrism to assume that Egyptians couldn't have discovered America because they were woefully lousy sailors?

Re:Cool.

[systemeng]

For Crete's sake. You would have to bring that up.

Re:Cool.

[MontyApollo]

I had a professor once that pretty effectively argued that Crete was Atlantis. I have forgot most of the arguments, but I believe one of them was that if you assumed a common translation error in numbers that Plato might have committed, then the eruption of Thera would coincide very well with the (corrected) time period of Atlantis's fall.

Re:Cool.

[MontyApollo]

I have problem with people making statements about how the pyramids could not be built with the technology available. So called crop circle experts said there was no way humans could be behind crop circles, until they were shown video of two retired guys and a wood plank in fact doing it. People used to talk about how it was scientifically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, but yet it does.

I think some people think too highly of their ability to figure things out, and they don't give other people enough credit for their ingenuity.

Re:Cool.

[a-zarkon!]

If you're going to bring up Hancock, please allow me to mention Simon. Paul Simon that is - who of course predicted this technique back in 1986 in "The Boy in the Bubble."

Need some reminding,
"These are the days of lasers in the jungle,
Lasers in the jungle somewhere,
Staccato signals of constant information"

OK so this is a poor attempt at humor. Couldn't help it - as soon as I read TFA, I got this stupid song ripping through my head.

Re:Cool.

[gyrogeerloose]

I had a professor once that pretty effectively argued that Crete was Atlantis

Yes, I've heard that too; in fact, one of the books I got my info on the Minoans from suggested the same. Also, that the eruption of Thera was possibly the cause of the parting of the Reed Sea, a shallow marshy area of northern Egypt, which is incorrectly translated as "Red Sea" in the Bible.

Re:Cool.

[osu-neko]

It would be more accurate to say your history books are full of mistruths, but if you want examples, just pick nearly any thing from a high school history book... and then REALLY research it.

1) We're all told that Benedict Arnold was simply a traitor to the American Revolution... but not that he was mistreated prior to that. (note: I'm not drawing judgment, these are simply facts).

For what it's worth, there was not a single "mistruth" in any history book I ever read about Benedict Arnold. Where there details omitted? Quite a bit, and too bad, because the story of Benedict Arnold is a fascinating one. But frankly, there are a lot of fascinating that don't make it into grade school history books. Most kids can't spend the eight hour a day for forty years straight to get something more than a cursory glossing over the facts involved in any history. All history books are necessarily incomplete.

Granted, Benedict Arnold deserves a lot more text in any book about the American Revolution than your typical school book gives him. But there are no "mistruths" in any I've seen, just a general skipping of the whole story.

As for the rest, it's true that I was taught North America was all but unpopulated when Europeans first arrived. It's false that I was told Custer was a hero. And I've never seen a single history book claim Jesus was blonde or blue-eyed.

Re:Cool.

[osu-neko]

Some interesting reading about these issues can be found in the books of Ralph Ellis. Another researcher who academics publicly label as a "kook" while begrudgingly accepting his conclusions in private.

Yes, but they also begrudgingly admit it's all a conspiracy due to him being behind on his Illuminati dues in private. (Hey wow, I can claim anything I want about what people do "in private" and point to the lack of published acknowledgment as proof! Of course, only a complete and utter fucking moron would believe me, since, of course, if they only do it in private, how the hell would I know?)

Re:Cool.

[osu-neko]

Is it also blatant Euro-centrism to assume that Egyptians couldn't have discovered America because they were woefully lousy sailors?

Well, it should be noted that he didn't say the Egyptians discovered America, he said we shouldn't be certain "there was absolutely no interaction between Egyptian and South American civilizations". Interaction can be indirect, e.g. perhaps there was some limited trade between the two civilizations, conducted by Phoenician sailors. I don't believe the Phoenicians visited South America, either, but I don't dismiss the idea out of hand. It's unlikely but not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

Re:Cool.

[jskiff]

Bathymetric LiDAR does work underwater, but only in limited conditions.

Re:Cool.

[osu-neko]

People used to talk about how it was scientifically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, but yet it does.

Idiots used to say it's impossible for a bumblebee to fly. Scientists used to say we don't fully understand how they do it yet. It turns out insect aerodynamics is quite a bit more complex than aircraft aerodynamics. But no one but morons ever said it violated any known laws.

Re:Cool.

[Locke2005]

Uh, no. Dig a shallow pit where the base of the pyramid is going to go. Flood it. Mark the water level all around. Now you know exactly where your first course of stones needs to start to be perfectly level. Lower level stones could have been floated into place using dikes and locks, but yes, this is probably impractical for higher level stones. But water could be used to lift stones arbitrarily high by a simple method: build a dike on the opposite side of structure. Add heavy boat and fill with water. Run rope over top of structure to stone you want to lift. Let water out -- lowering boat pulls stone up into place! Later, rinse, repeat. The point being, instead of using hundreds of people to drag a stone, you could use thousands of people or even some windmills to pump water uphill by distributing the pumps all along a long channel.

Re:Cool.

[Macrat]

Now get off your educated ass and find Atlantis, dammit.

You're assuming it actually existed.

Re:Cool.

[eh2o]

A contemporary theory is that the stones are actually poured concrete that is molded in-place rather than carved and hoisted to position... makes quite a bit more sense and it just takes a lot of brute force to get it there, no fancy engineering really...

Re:Cool.

[mjwx]

I also find silly our clinging to the belief that there was absolutely no interaction between Egyptian and South American civilizations

Why?

The level of technological exchange you describe would have required regular communication. Given that the ships of the time could not even cross the Mediterranean safely this is very unlikely. It is not a stretch to think that one Ancient Egyptian or Greek may have crossed the Atlantic (with no understanding of global currents, this would have taken months) but not the level required to trade technologies.

Certain advances are logical steps, writing for example, this is why there is no common root language, Hindi, Arabic, Mayan, far east and Latin scripts are all radically different despite performing the same function. The same with aqueducts and construction techniques. After the fall of the Roman empire, western cultures had to re-learn many building techniques again because the knowledge was lost, but the almost exact same techniques were rediscovered hundreds of years later. Things like lunar calendars can be discovered simply by observations, so many most cultures also used lunar calendars like the Mayans but none were ever as advanced.

Any real contact between cultures over such vast distances were done by migration and empires were a real hindrance to this, the Persians effectively separated the Europeans from the Indians who effectively isolated the Persians from the Chinese. This was not really overcome until the end of the Roman empires. The Ancient Aborigines that came to Australia 40-60,000 years ago did so by migration from Asia via the chains of islands connecting SE Asia to Australia and no real communication was achieved with Australia until 1800. As for crossing a large ocean like the Atlantic or Pacific was perilous in Columbus' day, with ships that were able to store several years of supplies and weather severe storms.

It seems like blatant Euro-centricism

"Euro-Centric" seems to be one of those buzzwords bandied about for something you don't like/agree with. It's entirely logical to conclude that cultures developed similar technologies due to similar needs and observations. Give the evidence for this theory and lack of evidence of regular communication I think this one is fairly safe. Why did the Mayans and Egyptians both build pyramid like structures, because it is logically the best shape for a large structure. The Romans and other Europeans built colosseums whilst the Mayans didn't, Asian cultures built pagoda's whilst Western and American cultures didn't.

Re:Cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the ships of the time could not even cross the Mediterranean safely this is very unlikely.

That's not a given at all.

Re:Cool.

[tronbradia]

I'm betting humanzee.

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

Some of the largest, heaviest stones are in the highest positions.

There have been several projects from different countries where engineers have tried to replicate the building of the pyramids using contemporaneous tools.

None have succeeded.

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

Don't you think the difference between poured concrete and quarried stone can be discerned by modern archeologists or engineers?

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

he said we shouldn't be certain "there was absolutely no interaction between Egyptian and South American civilizations".

If I dig through old Smithsonian Magazines I've got in the basement, I'll find an article about Hebrew scrolls found under Native American burial mounds dating more than a thousand years before Columbus.

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

until they were shown video of two retired guys and a wood plank in fact doing it

Crop circles? Why would you bring crop circles into this?

We're talking about pyramids and megalithic structures, and you bring up crop circles.

Nice misdirection.

Re:Cool.

[PopeRatzo]

A 100 ton block could easily be pushed or pulled over rollers by 200 people.

OK, you've gotten the 100 ton block from the quarry to the site. Now how do you place that block at the top of a pyramid, 100 feet up?

Re:Cool.

[JWSmythe]

    Don't forget, significantly less interesting.

    "Today is day 4. We're flying the remainder of the target area and capturing data."

    "Today is day 15. We're still processing the data."

    "Today is day 30. We're still processing the data."

    "Today is day 45. We've taken a helicopter to the most obvious structure with a nearby clearing. We confirmed it is a structure, but there are no sort of identifying marks on it. They likely have been eroded by weathering."

    "Today is day 56. We're still waiting for local government approval before entering the site."

    "Today is day 109. We found a structure full of rocks and dirt."

    "Today is day 215. We found what appears to be an arrow head."

    "Today is day 220. We found fragments of an unremarkable clay pot."

    "Today is day 222. Manuel disappeared. We heard a scream in the night last night. We believe a jaguar may have eaten him. We didn't find any of his remains. His camera is also missing, so we don't have the footage of the attack."

    "Today is day 235. The results have come back from the lab. It is a 200 year old arrow head. The clay pot test was inconclusive."

    Ahh, the real world of archeology versus the Hollywood version.

Re:Cool.

[yusing]

This tale by Robert Schoch is very revealing about the kind of resistance actual science gets from hidebound Egypt 'scholars'. (And a bit more about Hancock)

In the past year I've read enough new discoveries to suspect that a major paradigm shift about human history is building. How those big rocks got moved around is one of the more important pieces in the puzzle.

Re:Cool.

[stjobe]

The ghost of H.P. Lovecraft approves of this post.

Re:Cool.

[comp.sci]

It all depends on who you call an expert. A scientifically renown professor doesn't really compare to a "crop circle expert"... Also nobody ever said that bumbebees can't fly, more that they hadn't figured out how.

Re:Cool.

[Richard_at_work]

There have been several projects from different countries where engineers have tried to replicate the building of the pyramids using contemporaneous tools.

None have succeeded.

This little 'factoid' comes up often, and you know what it proves? Nothing other than some modern day engineers couldn't do it with techniques assumed to have been used. It doesn't prove that someone with an entire generational line of experience behind them in building ancient structures couldn't do it.

Re:Cool.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If I dig through old Smithsonian Magazines I've got in the basement, I'll find an article about Hebrew scrolls found under Native American burial mounds dating more than a thousand years before Columbus.

Please dig. I would very much like to hear more.

Re:Cool.

[radtea]

Nothing other than some modern day engineers couldn't do it with techniques assumed to have been used.

Yeah, it's pretty much like giving a modern computer scientist a quill, ink and parchment and asking them to work out Newtonian physics from scratch. Why anyone would expect someone with an utterly unrelated skill-set that is tuned up for the modern world to be able to replicate what ancient engineers did is beyond me.

The only thing stupider is when archeologists try to do the same thing: people who have clearly never built anything with their hands in their lives trying to intuit the optimal behaviour of people who, as you point out, had spent generations doing nothing but.

Re:Cool.

[radtea]

Also, the way everything is assembled brick by brick, you'd wonder why the base wouldn't be one giant piece, using his theory.

Not if you'd ever built anything big out of concrete, you wouldn't.

This is the problem with this kind of speculation: it is inevitably done by people who think they can see from their armchair how far more intelligent people[*] a few thousand years ago who were heirs to a deep and rich tradition of building techniques might have done things.

[*] The human population has grown by a factor of ten in the past 200 years, indicating selective pressures have dropped to essentially zero. If intelligence is heritable and selected on at all the current population of humans is therefore necessarily the stupidist that has ever lived, on average.

Re:Cool.

[Spy der Mann]

Now find Atlantis.

I was about to say, if Indiana Jones had LIDAR, those movies would be a lot shorter.

Why settle for LIDAR when you can have Orichalcum?

Re:Cool.

[Locke2005]

Did any of those experiments use thousands of brawny, well-fed, enthusiastic volunteers who had been doing this type of work their entire lives, working several months out of the year in a highly organized society with a huge infrastructure already in place for quarrying, transporting, and cutting stone? Didn't think so...

Re:Cool.

[Locke2005]

Safe crossing isn't required for "some contact". Given thousands of ships lost at sea, it isn't too outrageous to expect a few might have gotten blown all the way to a new continent with enough survivors to exchange ideas -- and possibly even seeds. The ancients got around a lot more than we give them credit for. Trade goods traveled thousands of miles, passing through many hands. Although independent origination of ideas and technology is possible, it is also possible that some of these ideas were inspired by "tales from far-away lands."

Re:Cool.

[Wyatt Earp]

If there were advanced ancient civilizations like you are talking about...wouldn't it be logical that they would have failed and become lost from the chaos of the late ice ages? The Younger Dryas would have really farked with any that were far enough south/north to avoid the glaciers.

Any images?

[gstoddart]

So, I skimmed TFA, and I don't see any pics. Clicked on several links, nothing.

I'd actually like to see this, it sounds pretty cool -- does anyone have a link which actually has images in it?

Re:Any images?

[gstoddart]

To answer my own question ... here is a link.

The NYT has the images so wrapped up in javascript, plugins, and whatnot that noscript didn't let me get to it. :-P

Re:Any images?

[TheThiefMaster]

There's a thumbnail on the left of the article which links to a big image.

Re:Any images?

[Onymous Coward]

What I'd like to see is the actual 3D data. That would be fun to get at.

Fast turnaround

[JustNilt]

What's most impressive to me is how quickly they got the results. It only took a couple days of actual data gathering then a few weeks of lab processing. Last I heard about anything similar (using satellite images, IIRC) it took months to get results.

Very cool stuff.

Re:Fast turnaround

[osu-neko]

Bah. Wake me up when I can turn to Mr. Data and have the display come up a few button presses after the scan.

Forensic Anthropology

[linzeal]

If shallow graves can be told apart from the native terrain w/ Lidar over a period of 1 week, 1 month, 1 year etc, than it might work. You would pry need to do a full body farm treatment on it though.

Re:Forensic Anthropology

[geekoid]

Assuming those lost people dug their own shallow grave...

I suspect the poster was thinking living people.

Dead people are easy to find, hell I go a whole park full of em not to far from my house.

You'd be surprised how people hate it when I play Frisbee there.

Research Report URL

[Atraxen]

The NYT article was actually pretty good, but for those who want a bit more 'meat on the bone', here's the 2009 research project report:
http://caracol.cos.ucf.edu/reports/2009.php
There are some nice examples of the LIDAR images at the end of the page in the Figures section.

Re:Research Report URL

[city]

I was there in November and they have done a really good job there leaving some of the city as it exists today overtaken by the jungle and some restored to show how the Maya lived in the cities. You would have no idea the mounds and hills of the jungle are pyramids and structures. The people there say you can't buy land without diggin up a Maya house in your backyard. Today in Belize there are around 300,000 people in the whole country, versus estimations before the Maya collapse of a couple million. For perspective the largest city there today only has 70,000 people.

Re:Research Report URL

[b4upoo]

So we have found a large, ancient city with a large population. No good cable television in play explains it all. They had nothing to do but reproduce and without good sewer systems living a few steps away from your neighbors keeps the stink down a bit.

Re:Research Report URL

[yo_tuco]

"So we have found a large, ancient city with a large population."

Significant. One of the largest, ancient and romantic cities were so many of its citizens had broken hearts.

Re:Research Report URL

[AlejoHausner]

Sure, it's got insight, explanations, interesting archeological information, diagrams of excavations, photos of ceramic artifacts, but it's only got one decent lidar scan. How can you say it's more informative than the NYT article? ;-)

Alejo

They aren't overgrown

[spun]

These pyramids aren't overgrown, they're just big boned, you insensitive clods.

Re:They aren't overgrown

[Tukz]

These pyramids aren't overgrown, they're just big stoned, you insensitive clods.

There, fixed it.

Re:They aren't overgrown

[jd2112]

Vegatationally endowed?

Lidar

[LearnToSpell]

Pretty much my favourite detection system.

Re:Lidar

[Yvan256]

Yep. It detects lies.

Re:Lidar

[nuckfuts]

It took them like three hours to finish the shading on the upper lips of those terraces.

Re:Lidar

[AdamThor]

What?! But... how will I detect lids?

Re:Lidar

[GungaDan]

"But... how will I detect lids?"

Find Merlo the Magician. Fall into his hat.

Re:Lidar

[bluie-]

I'm also a fan of gaydar

Re:Lidar

[Rocketship Underpant]

But does it have large talons?

Idle Questions

[SnarfQuest]

Not that I ever plan on visiting, but...
Can they see, how do you say, any pockets of gold in these scans? Accuracy would be important. Do the airplane restrictions include shovels and picks? Do they search your luggage when you go home? Can you make more money out of mayan gold ornaments, or would you get more out of a solid, unrecognisable, lump?

DOn't be stupid

[geekoid]

Find big foot, then Nessy and THEN Atlantis.

2012?

[SoulMaster]

Could these newly found pyramids finally unlock the secrets of what will happen (or not) on December 21st, 2012?

Personally, I'm betting we're not going to get these dug out in time. When we do get them un-buried, I'd laugh if they said something along the lines, "Yeah, our whole 2012 thing was just a joke to scare the Inca! See those lines they built at Nazca? We put them up to that too!".

Ahh, the Maya, the great pranksters of the ancient world!

Until then, I'm just going to be happy with the 2012 Insurance Policy I picked up to laugh about this 2012 thing with all my friends!

-SM

Re:2012?

[schon]

My theory is that 2012 is when all the Mayan computers will crash.

You just know that ~5000 years ago, some Mayan committee somewhere was designing this, and someone said "hey, what happens after year 5335?" and the answer was "who cares? by the time that rolls around, we'll be using something completely different."

It's just like Y2K, except there is nobody around now to fix their code.

Re:2012?

[gyrogeerloose]

what will happen (or not) on December 21st, 2012?

Probably more or less the same things that happen (or not) on December 20th and 22nd, 2012.

Re:2012?

[gorzek]

Yeah, but all the Mayan hardware was EOLed centuries ago. It's not like anyone needs support for it anymore.

Re:2012?

[Eternauta3k]

It's just like Y2K, except there is nobody around now to fix their code.

It's worse, there are some Mayan programmers still around but nobody can afford them :(

Re:2012?

[natehoy]

It's the Y14b'ak'tun problem. A tad clumsy the first few times you say it, but it grows on you.

Re:2012?

[osu-neko]

Probably more or less the same things that happen (or not) on December 20th and 22nd, 2012.

So, what, the same thing happens in your life every day of the week? How boring is that?

Oh, wait...

Re:2012?

[gyrogeerloose]

So, what, the same thing happens in your life every day of the week? How boring is that?

Oh, wait...

Two people who think that attempting to make humorous posts on Slashdot is what counts as a good time are probably not in any position to judge what's boring or not.

Atlantis

[johanwanderer]

Now find Atlantis.

Using LIDAR on Earth isn't going to help. Last time I saw, it flew to another planet.

I am reminded of the 'face' on Mars

[scerruti]

You know how people tend to see faces in objects? I suspect that when people design systems with this much processing they tend to see straight lines where they may not actually exist. There is a *lot* of digital processing happening on the raw data. So what does that cause? A game trail or footpath may appear to be a road. An irregular slope suddenly appears to be terraced farmland.

Let us not be awed by this technology until it has been proven out by field studies, this was the same technology that, just a few years earlier, reported a lake with a 14 degree slope.

To paraphrase a movie line

[gyrogeerloose]

Dead people are easy to find

"I smell dead people..."

Lost City of Z

[Mister Whirly]

So can they use this to find the fabled Lost City of Z in the Amazon jungle? And maybe the remains of explorer Percy Fawcett who disappeared looking for it?

Re:Lost City of Z

[atamido]

So can they use this to find the fabled Lost City of Z in the Amazon jungle? And maybe the remains of explorer Percy Fawcett who disappeared looking for it?

For those not in the know, this is possibly a real place that a real explorer went missing while searching for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_City_of_Z

Re:Lost City of Z

[Mister Whirly]

If you want to read a really good book on the subject, David Grann's "The Lost City of Z" is my suggestion. Full of history but not dry or boring at all.

I've been told that

[tdp252]

GayDar is a much more advanced technology...

Re:I've been told that

[ArsonSmith]

Advances seem to set it off the most.

it's time for...

[c_jonescc]

Robot Indiana Jones

Pretty much

[Anne_Nonymous]

The Lidar is pretty much my favorite animal.

old civs couldn't have been THAT smart.

[bluie-]

if they were so smart, how come they're dead?

Re:So why did so many cultures build pyramids ?

[gslj]

Isn't that a little strange ? Or is it just one of those obvious things...(Hey, we should build build stone pyramid shaped things...)

Or, to rephrase, "Why is it that pyramids all over the world have the same shape?"

-Gareth

landing pads for Ha'taks

[Joe The Dragon]

landing pads for Ha'taks

Re:Word

[AlejoHausner]

The missing comma strikes again. Kinda like "eats, shoots, and leaves."

Most to the Americas was "empty" by that time

[ahbi]

it's true that I was taught North America was all but unpopulated when Europeans first arrived
This is true for most places in the Americas.
.
Plague, inadvertently and inherently brought by very very early Spanish sailors, wiped out massive massive numbers of Native Americas. And it tended to travel faster than Europeans could colonize.
The Pilgrims built their settlement on top of a Native American settlement. Why? Because a few years before the Pilgrims, plague had come through and killed off all the Indians there. Also part of the reason the natives near the Pilgrims needed allies (i.e. the Pilgrims) against their lesser killed off enemies.
Native Americans just hadn't had their asses kicked by small pox, Bubonic plague, and a ton of other illnesses over a few centuries. And, therefore, had no defenses to the illnesses.
The massive death of the Indians lead the Spanish to import African slaves for their plantation system, instead of solely relying on Native American slaves. (As an aside you'll notice the further north in the continents you go the better the slaves/natives were treated.)
And, how do you think the Conquistadors were able to conquer so much with so few men? The natives had just gotten their asses kicked by illness. Hell, the Incan civil war that allowed Pizarro to conquer them was a direct result of their leaders dying from European illnesses about 5-10 years BEFORE Pizarro even showed up.
.
Think of HG Wells "War of the Worlds" except in reverse. Instead of the invaders (the Martians/Europeans) being killed off by a germ/virus, the invaded (Earthlings/Indians) got killed off.
And remember the Europeans (a) thought these illness were normal, and (b) had no germ theory of illness (remember they were still cutting themselves to adjust their humours). So, the transmission of the illness was totally inadvertent.
.
So, yeah, when a lot of Europeans showed up, the continents were pretty empty. Especially the English/French who showed up much later than the Spanish, which gave the germs a lot of time to work their way through North America.

Re:Most to the Americas was "empty" by that time

[radtea]

As an aside you'll notice the further north in the continents you go the better the slaves/natives were treated.

In Canada we treat our native peoples like shit, pretty much, despite some hopeful signs in northern British Columbia. There may be a tiny bit of truth to your observation, but natives were treated badly everywhere, to the extent possible, and by the time you get to Canada you're dealing with people who were eating very meat-heavy diets who were genetically low in alcohol dehydrogenase production, which meant that alcoholism finished in the 20th century what disease and cultural genocide started to do in the 19th.

The OP's comment about mythology in history is dead on: in Canada we have the "myth of the Northwest Mounted Police" as a civilizing and peaceful force compared to the American "wild west", but if you dig into the facts you find that Mounted Police constables and officers spent most of their time drinking, gambling, seducing each others wives, and buying and selling native women for the purpose of prostitution.

Re:Most to the Americas was "empty" by that time

[MikeBabcock]

I think if you look into it a bit, you'll find our neighbours to the south treated them even worse, that's all.

Re:Most to the Americas was "empty" by that time

[Nyder]

In Canada we treat our native peoples like shit, pretty much...

Ya, in the USA we treat Canadians like shit, pretty much... eh?

Suddenly hidden?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Using this, suddenly hidden pyramids, agricultural terraces, and ancient roads are revealed

I find that gradually hidden pyramids to be of more architectural interest, while suddenly hidden pyramids are more interesting from an anthropological point of view.

I wondered if this could be the Lost City of Z

[PinchDuck]

But it looks a bit too far afield to be the location of Fawcett's suspected jungle city.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Obsession-Vintage-Departures/dp/1400078458/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273642715&sr=8-1