Drones and Satellites Spot Lost Civilizations In Unlikely Places

sciencehabit writes What do the Sahara desert and the Amazon rainforest have in common? Until recently, archaeologists would have told you they were both inhospitable environments devoid of large-scale human settlements. But they were wrong. Here today at the annual meeting of the AAAS, two researchers explained how remote sensing technology, including satellite imaging and drone flights, is revealing the traces of past civilizations that have been hiding in plain sight."

Comments

every few years

[ganjadude]

Every few years we read about long lost civilizations that were found by aerial footage. I remember a handfull of years ago people were using google earth to locate some. Its always interesting when the news comes out. but 99% of the time once its "found" thats the end of it for us, no more news ever comes out. Hopefully this will lead to some new findings

Re:every few years

[ganjadude]

on the one hand, i do understand not wanting to give up the locations you are working on so others dont publish before you do, or worse, grave robbers and other bad guys, but on the other hand you are right. crowd sourcing would make the type of work he is doing much easier

Re:every few years

[TWX]

Except that in both cases, evidence of civilization in both places has been established prior to satellites and aircraft, and anthropologists and archeologists have provided evidence, and climate scientists have provided us with theories for the end of that civilization in what's now the Sahara, in the form of the Sahara Pump Theory.

Sure, aerial survey techniques can be used to help, and might even be able to establish evidence in other places, but for the moment it isn't quite as influential as the summary makes it out to be.

Re:every few years

[rtb61]

That of course is of limited benefit as humanity has a predilection to crafting civilisations on the coast at river mouths. Not much visible ancient history of that but of course end of a twenty odd thousand year long ice age and a rather substantial couple of hundred metre odd rise in sea level. Perhaps sonar mapping will expose far more than aerial or satellite images. Watching you civilisation die beneath the waves will likely have a major impact upon where you choose to rebuild it, keeping in mind the real destructive impact of societies attempting to relocate to more primitive already inhabited areas.

Re:every few years

[kylemonger]

I'd settle for a link to a Google Earth image that shows one of these civilizations "hiding in plain sight". The article only has some stock image of a desert that looks like it was shot form the back of a jeep.

Re:every few years

[Blaskowicz]

On yet another hand, the US gave Saddam Hussein interpretations of satellite pictures done by military intelligence experts rather than just the pictures alone, to help during the war against Iran. I don't think the work is necessarily so easy that it just gets done on its own and the pictures may be quite unglamorous. Why not let people who can do the work do it ; setting up the web infrastructure, database access, pretty-printing the data for everyday joes and then managing the community and signal/noise ratio would be a big task. Interesting, but it would have to be funded.

Re:every few years

[gl4ss]

basically its just "OMG DRONESSSS"

it's just aerial imaging. nothing new and the "how" things have been looked for and found with it is old hat..

Re:every few years

[Paradise Pete]

You went from premise to conclusion to anger to wild accusation in consecutive sentences. Impressive.

Re:every few years

[gl4ss]

unlikely as ground for most part has risen not sunken for the time period we believe there to have been advanced large cultures.

anyways, plenty of stuff still found at the ancient harbors in greece, italy and egypt.

Re:every few years

[GrumpySteen]

basically its just "OMG DRONESSSS"

That should be "OMG DRONIES!!!!" and it should be in giant pink letters with animated sparkles like this.

Re:every few years

[EdwardFurlong]

I was thinking the same thing... where are the pictures? You can post a few, nobody is going to be able to figure out the location from some pictures a drone took.

Re:every few years

[DerekLyons]

Every few years we read about long lost civilizations that were found by aerial footage. I remember a handfull of years ago people were using google earth to locate some. Its always interesting when the news comes out. but 99% of the time once its "found" thats the end of it for us, no more news ever comes out.

Plenty of news comes out - if you're following the relevant news sources. If you rely on mass/popular media (which relies on sex and shock to sell, and includes Slashdot), all you're going to get is sizzle - the steak is in the specialized news.

Lets hope

[rossdee]

Lets hope they can find the ancient aliens civilisation so we can discover some of their technology (fusion power, FTL druve, antigravity...

that one special word

[YrWrstNtmr]

'Drone'
That makes the article special

How about...aircraft.?

I came for pictures....

[Anonymous Coward]

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME CLICKING ON THIS ARTICLE!
I came for pictures but all I got was teasers for conferences.

Re:I came for pictures....

[Rockoon]

mod parent +1 definitive

Re:I came for pictures....

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Indeedy. Slashvertisement for some conference. **yawn**

Yamamomo

[Frosty Piss]

The Yamamomo didn't want to be found, and being found destroyed their world.

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely wrong. At least provide a credible source for this astounding claim.

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[ModelX]

The Sahara as we know it now exists mainly because during 'roman times' (+/-500 years) the woods there got lumbered down.
So yes, it is mainly man made.

That's not quite true. Lumbering only affected the progress of northern border of Sahara.

The weather patterns were also changing during Roman times. There was more rain in some places and some places were even warmer than today.

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[grey1]

I think the evidence suggests a longer-range climate cycle, rather than a man-made event, at least based on some of the material summarised in wikipedia on the Sahara:

Sahara pump theory with long periods of increased rainfall

Neolithic subpluvial with a wet phase from about 10000 years ago to about 5000 years ago

and then a very specific paper from 1987, for those who like their research in detailed PDFs, describing the evidence (bones, different alluvial deposits etc) for the wet period

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely wrong. At least provide a credible source for this astounding claim.

Look no further than the story of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. Although this story has been retold and collected numerous times during the centuries, and undergone extensive editing in the process, all sources agree on Ali Baba's occupation: not an imam, not a slave trader, not a caravan owner, not a camel breeder, but an incongruous wood cutter (the ancient equivalent of a lumberjack).

(ok, now take a deep breath and a pinch of salt for the above.)

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[mi]

The Sahara as we know it now exists mainly because during 'roman times' (+/-500 years) the woods there got lumbered down.

Here is the timeline — already linked to once before:

• 22,000 to 10,500 years ago: The Sahara was devoid of any human occupation outside the Nile Valley and extended 250 miles further south than it does today.
• 10,500 to 9,000 years ago: Monsoon rains begin sweeping into the Sahara, transforming the region into a habitable area swiftly settled by Nile Valley dwellers.
• 9,000 to 7,300 years ago: Continued rains, vegetation growth, and animal migrations lead to well established human settlements, including the introduction of domesticated livestock such as sheep and goats.
• 7,300 to 5,500 years ago: Retreating monsoonal rains initiate desiccation in the Egyptian Sahara, prompting humans to move to remaining habitable niches in Sudanese Sahara. The end of the rains and return of desert conditions throughout the Sahara after 5,500 coincides with population return to the Nile Valley and the beginning of pharaonic society.

Then there is this article, in which a NASA scientist explains the climate-change with changes in Earth's orbit. It also dates the end of the "Green Sahara" at about 5500 years ago. Or, roughly, three thousand years before the nameless momma-wolf suckled the fateful human twins...

Can one get any more wrong than blaming Roman lumber industry for Sahara's climate-change? I suppose, one can. But you are certainly within the top 1% territory...

Lots of other stuff on the subject is along the same line, but nothing blames the humans today. Whether the humans of the times blamed each other, was my original question.

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[Moridineas]

Nicely said!

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[angel'o'sphere]

I was manly referring to the parts the romans occupied, obviously.

Also you missed the point of +/- 500 years, extend it to -1500 then, does not really matter.

Point is: even during roman times the north of the *now* Shara, and that means the whole area from Marocco to Egypt was a fertile Wood/Fields area, the main grain harvesting ground for the mediterranean area.

However you are right about the core of the Sahara.

If you want to ask why Spain is so dry, same answer: deforested mainly during roman times.

Re:a few huts in the jungle != civilization

[cusco]

Wow, so much stupid in such a short post. One of the oldest villages yet uncovered existed in the Atacama Desert on the Peruvian coast. The invention of adobe in both the New and Old worlds appears to have happened about the same time. When the European barbarians arrived the Inca and Aztec capitals were two or three times the size of any city in Europe or anywhere else outside China, cleaner, better organized, and more advanced in almost everything but weaponry. The first Spaniards who floated down the Amazon reported thriving cities and extensive fields all along the river. Goods were exchanged between the high Andes and the lower Amazon. By the time the Portuguese had arrived to explore the Amazon disease had killed 90+ percent of the population and the jungle was reclaiming land down to the river's banks.

The two principal advantages the Europeans had were 1) unrivaled ignorant religious fanaticism unequaled until the modern Wahabist movement, and 2) their habit of living in a level of filth unknown at any other point in human history which ensured the survivors were immune to, and carriers of, almost every disease known to mankind.

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry,

I was unprecise, I was more talking about the edges of the Sahara, mainly the 300km stripe at the mediterranean coast from Marocco to Egypt.

Ofc the Sahara center is an other issue and has a quite fluctuating history since the end of the ice age.

But thanx for the links, they are interesting!

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[mi]

If you want to ask why Spain is so dry, same answer: deforested mainly during roman times.

Seriously? You were just demonstrated to be full of manure and typing up the content of the wrong orifice. Instead of running away in shame and changing your /. account to reduce the frequency of nightmares of this public planing set to haunt you for years to come, instead of seeking counseling or joining a monastery, you are right back here fighting some sort of rearguard action?

No, I don't want to ask, why Spain is dry — it is the topic of neither the TFA nor of our cute little conversation here.

The semi-humorous point I was making is that the Earth — already inhabited by Homo Sapiense — has undergone many changes — some of them with very dramatic effects. In addition to Sahara's changes, I can name

1. Ice-sheet around Kodiak islands melting, forever isolating Kodiak bears (who can not swim) and forcing them to fork their own branch, so to speak — 11700 years ago.
2. The seas rising enough to make Tasmania an island about 10000 years ago (roughly 25000 years after the first humans arrived there);
3. Village of Mulifanua drowned in the sea about 3000 years ago;
4. City of Heracleion in Northern Africa sinks in the Mediterranian 1200 years ago. Well, finally, something you can blame on those Roman loggers.

And, of course, the giant elephant, nay mammoth in every AGW-alarmist's room: the Ice Age... If such stupendous changes in climate, ice-sheets, and sea-levels happened for some reasons before the humans had the technology blamed by the (in)famous "hockey stick" for the changes of today, is it not reasonable to doubt, anything other than those same reasons are responsible for what little changes are observed today?

And is it really so wrong — trolling and flamebaiting — to mock those, who insist, without any proof, some other reasons must be at play?

Here is some actual information

[AlejoHausner]

OK folks, let's stop griping about the OP and try to get some actual content. If you look at the home page of David Mattingly, the main researcher on this project, and check his list of publications, you'll hit this one:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S000...

It describes his team's exploration of previously-unknown settlement by Garamantes people, ancestors of today's Tuaregs, who dominated the Sahara from 500 BC to 700 AD. Cool stuff. He's been working in the area for 20 years, and the people in question were known to the classical Greeks and Romans.

Re:How can a civilization perish without AGW?

[angel'o'sphere]

Don't know what you want to say or ask :)

It is a no brainer that climate changes happend without human interference.

So, what is your point?