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Lost City Discovered In Honduran Rain Forest

jones_supa writes: An expedition to Honduras has emerged from the jungle with the discovery of a previously unknown culture's lost city. The team was led to the remote, uninhabited region by long-standing rumors that it was the site of a storied "White City," also referred to in legend as the "City of the Monkey God." Archaeologists surveyed and mapped extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived a thousand years ago, and then vanished. The team also discovered a remarkable cache of stone sculptures that had lain untouched since the city was abandoned. The objects were documented but left unexcavated. To protect the site from looters, its location is not being revealed.

61 comments

  1. Doesn't really look like a city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just some partially burried slabs, really.

  2. "White City" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    White City

    Nonsense, its clearly black and blue.

    1. Re:"White City" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      White City

      Nonsense, its clearly black and blue.

      and read all over (it is on /. after all)

  3. Um, Mayans? by HBI · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or someone very closely related to them? You know, the group in that area that formed a thriving civilization that supposedly fell apart during a drought...RIGHT AT THAT TIME?

    Those unknown people?

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:Um, Mayans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank god you're hear to point this out to the people who know the peoples of the region. Why, if it weren't for you, I bet they'd be stuck thinking that they were a completely different people.

    2. Re:Um, Mayans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      More like Misogynists. Their harassment and human sacrifice of women earned them the wrath of the forest and its creatures, who rose up in unison to overthrow xir oppressors. The trees took the even stones.

      Nerd-dom needs to learn from their mistake. Get on the right side of history.

    3. Re:Um, Mayans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      xir

      If you actually knew any cisgendered women, you'd know they abhor the transgendered and pronouns like that.

      But whatever. I don't know how cisfemale supremacists have convinced you that they somehow support transgendered identities, but they have.

    4. Re:Um, Mayans? by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Thank god you're hear to point this out to the people who know the peoples of the region. Why, if it weren't for you, I bet they'd be stuck thinking that they were a completely different people.

      They were different people. I'm from the region btw.

    5. Re:Um, Mayans? by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Replying to self to add a correction: I mean to say "most likely they were different people". Mayans were confined to the North West of the country and their presence dwindle at the end of the Classic Mayan Period (circa 900 AD).

    6. Re:Um, Mayans? by xevioso · · Score: 1

      You are a crazy person.

  4. evidence or it didn't happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The objects were documented but left unexcavated. To protect the site from looters, its location is not being revealed.

    Some archaeological frauds were desperate to publish and fabricated a non-existent city. If it's not verifiable, it's fiction.

  5. Please... by readin · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sick and tired of these overly dramatic headlines Slashdot keeps throwing at us. The city was never "lost". It was misplaced.

    --
    I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    1. Re:Please... by Bovius · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Honey, do you know where we put the city?"

      "Pretty sure it's with the keys!"

      "It's not with the keys!"

      "Did you leave it in the desk drawer?"

      "No, it's not there, either! You didn't leave it out in the Honduran jungle again, did you?"

      "Try calling it!"

      "I can't call it, it's an ancient abandoned city!"

      Followed by half an hour of heated argument.

    2. Re:Please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only half an hour of argument? Newlyweds.

    3. Re:Please... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Oh, but its people *vanished*. Like freaking David Copperfield.

      They didn't die off or move or even, gosh, "left". *Poof* - probably beamed up to the Mayan God's mothership for slave labor.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    4. Re: Please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, if it's been found then its no longer a "lost" city. That's nearly as annoying as "Revealed: The Untold Story of ..." Also, if it was a previously unknown culture, how was it a "lost" city?

  6. Re:Um, TFA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    In contrast to the nearby Maya, this vanished culture has been scarcely studied and it remains virtually unknown. Archaeologists don't even have a name for it.

    I might be going out on a limb here, but let me hazard a guess that you're not an Archaeologist...

  7. How did they do it by readin · · Score: 1

    I'm always amazed that they were able to build a civilization in such a thick jungle.

    --
    I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    1. Re:How did they do it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It was not a thick jungle at the time. Clear cutting, burning, and flattening of terrain was done just as we do today.

    2. Re:How did they do it by kesuki · · Score: 1, Funny

      "I'm always amazed that they were able to build a civilization in such a thick jungle."

      have you ever heard of Wraith bioelectronics? how about Zerg bio-infestation? what about the orc former ally the undead serving nazul?

      a zero-point-module can sustain a sufficently large jungle if it gets one the above applied to it.

    3. Re:How did they do it by n3r0.m4dski11z · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "I'm always amazed that they were able to build a civilization in such a thick jungle."

      There is a theory that the jungle only exists today because of the cultivation of plants and leaving of waste by humans in the area previously. They say that the building up of human and livestock waste is what made it so fertile. I have also read that they had a different concept of farming than western civilization. They farmed with many different crops planted together, so that say one that gave back more nitrogen into the soil could fertilize other plants.

      It is posited that this is why the jungle is so thick in parts of south america. It was somewhat engineered that way by man.

      "Terra preta (black earth), which is distributed over large areas in the Amazon forest, is now widely accepted as a product of indigenous soil management. The development of this fertile soil allowed agriculture and silviculture in the previously hostile environment; meaning that large portions of the Amazon rainforest are probably the result of centuries of human management, rather than naturally occurring as has previously been supposed."

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      -
    4. Re:How did they do it by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm sure it's true to a point, but considering the fauna that has lived there long before humans came along, I'd say the jungle predates human activity by a very long period of time.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    5. Re:How did they do it by cusco · · Score: 1

      the building up of human and livestock waste

      The Maya and other peoples in this region did not have domesticated livestock, at least as we think of them. They raised domesticated ducks (and apparently chickens brought from China) but other than that their only animals were dogs and pets such as monkeys and parrots. This area is a thousand or more kilometers from the Amazon, which your link refers to.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    6. Re:How did they do it by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      flattening of terrain was done just as we do today

      Caterpillar has only been in business since 1925.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  8. i'm confused by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Funny

    is this the city that turns into a ufo?

    or the one with the giant rolling stone trap?

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  9. More like declassified. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After the SGC's teams cleaned up the ruins and made sure no further Ancient technology besides the Tel'Chak device was present at the time of discovery, the site was declassified and announced as an archaeological discovery.

  10. Lost in the Honduran Rain Forest? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    So THAT'S where I left it! I've been looking everywhere for that city! I checked the couch cushions, my desk at work, transit lost and found... I was just about to give up!

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Lost in the Honduran Rain Forest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Good on you. Now answer this question:

      Honey? Where are my paaaaaaaaaants?

  11. A rescue team by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Archaeologists surveyed and mapped extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived a thousand years ago, and then vanished.

    Why is everyone so laid back about these archaeologists?

    We need to urgently send a rescue team.

    1. Re:A rescue team by Flavianoep · · Score: 1

      Archaeologists surveyed and mapped extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived a thousand years ago, and then vanished.

      Why is everyone so laid back about these archaeologists? We need to urgently send a rescue team.

      I got that! I've been reading about the Oxford comma these days.

      --
      Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
  12. its location is not being revealed by Megane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To protect the site from looters, its location is not being revealed.

    Don't forget to scrub those EXIF tags! Otherwise it might end up automatically pegged on Google Maps.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    1. Re:its location is not being revealed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AC replying because quite frankly this deserves way more replies than most other topics. Yes, Mayan sister-civilizaton, still of amazing interest to archaeologists, and, more importantly, GM's looking for a new twist on their storylines. Not even kidding about the second bit - if you think about it, ancient civilizatons contribute an amazing amount to modern RP and with every archaeological discovery we enrich the stories we can create even more.

    2. Re:its location is not being revealed by MiniMike · · Score: 1

      Or better yet change the GPS data to the coordinates of a prison or army base.

  13. Re:Um, TFA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    But I am an archaeologist and I work in Honduras. The region they're in (and although they're "keeping it a secret" they've previously released satellite photos with the area circled on it so we know what river they're on, and where from the contours of the river course) is not the deep dark jungle. By their own reporting the site is endangered by "nearby deforesting". That means there are people nearby who can get timber out to market. Furthermore, there's previous archaeological work in the same area done by Chris Begley so we already knew that there were large cities along these rivers and that they had ball courts. Nothing they've found is a surprise to archaeologists familiar with the history of investigation in Honduras. They are choosing to ignore that history. Since we don't have precise coordinates we can't be sure, but it would not surprise us to find out the site they visited was one Chris visited and mapped in the 1980s in his dissertation. This region today is occupied by Miskito and Pech speakers, whose ancestors have lived in the region for at least the last 5000 years, and Spanish speakers who have only been in the region since the 19th century.

  14. long lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    pics or it never happened

  15. City of the Monkey God by captjc · · Score: 1

    Quick, time to call Guybrush Threepwood, mighty explorer.

    Look behind you, a three-headed monkey god!

    --
    Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
    1. Re:City of the Monkey God by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not that unusual, actually. The first Mesopotamian cities were also named after patron deities.

  16. Protection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I also found the golden city, all made of gold. In the center, the fountain of youth. To protect the site from looters, its location is not being revealed.

  17. Lost city in Australia by Stele · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you draw a line from Honduras through the rumored location of Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and then through the Congo where the lost city of Zinj is, it points directly to northern Australia, so there has to be another lost city there. Get your machetes out Australians and start looking!

  18. Detroit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One day soon, it will be.

  19. No It's Not by Lord+Balto · · Score: 2

    That's not a pyramid, it's just a vegetation encrusted natural phenomenon like the "pyramids" in Bosnia. Why is every orthogonal formation with four sides aligned with the cardinal points and a platform on top supposed to be a pyramid? Damned New Agers. ;-)

    1. Re:No It's Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is every orthogonal formation with four sides aligned with the cardinal points and a platform on top supposed to be a pyramid?

      Hey, it's not his fault he's seeing pyramids everywhere. The greys are the ones planting all the clues.

  20. "City of the Monkey God." by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    Oooooook!

    1. Re: "City of the Monkey God." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They better stop with this buffoonery before the Librarian get's all worked up.

    2. Re: "City of the Monkey God." by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Librarian, is that you? What are you doing outside of Unseen University?

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  21. Send Giorgio Tsoukalos fast... by martiniturbide · · Score: 1

    Came on Giorgio !!! get there fast before the looters take away your alien !!

  22. New yorker: More indepth by n3r0.m4dski11z · · Score: 1

    Thought this sounded familiar.

    There was an article in 2013 about the LIDAR system they used to find the city and the process of getting the government to agree to allow the mapping.

    http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

    While not as many nice pictures, I think it has more of a background on both the city, the state of the politics in honduras and more historical info.

    --
    -
  23. Location not revealed by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... until after airing of the Survivor series.

    Monkey God played by Jeff Probst

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  24. How Much Time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...until there is a Starbucks and a McDonalds in that location?

  25. Gawd! Damnit, not Mayans! by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or someone very closely related to them? You know, the group in that area that formed a thriving civilization that supposedly fell apart during a drought...RIGHT AT THAT TIME?

    Those unknown people?

    Mayans were only one of the many people living in the area. There were/are Pech in the East (linguistically affiliated with Macro-Chibchan), the powerful Lenca in the north west (also Macro-Chibchan) living where the Mayan once were, Tolupan/Xicaque (language isolate), Pipil (Uto-Aztecan), Ulwa, Tawahka, Mayagna, and Matagalpa (Misumalpan), etc.

    That is, Mayan are just the best known culture in Honduras. They weren't even the predominant culture anymore by the time of the Spanish conquest of Honduras. I've been hearing the rumors of the "White City" since the late 80's, and we keep finding archeological stuff in Honduras and Nicaragua which are really hard to categorize as cultures go.

    The location of it, in the Mosquitia region, far to the east, is waaaay too far away from the Honduran Mayan homelands. The culture from this site are almost certainty neither Mayan nor Lenca. I doubt they are Tolupan because the proposed Tolupan homeland is to the north of Honduras.

    By the geographic location of it, the culture was either Proto-Pech or Misumalpan (or even a culture long gone with no linguistic/ethnic survivors).

    1. Re:Gawd! Damnit, not Mayans! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree Luis. See also this: http://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com/2015/03/honduran-archaeologists-criticize-us.html where Honduras's own trained archaeologists complain about the "discovery" trope as erasing or ignoring past research in the area.

  26. phooey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    alll i saw was a stupid popup that asks me to register

  27. Betcha It's Right Here! by Toad-san · · Score: 1

    https://maps.google.com/maps?q...

    See the crater-shaped valley? With rivers? And strange semi-circular effects on the jungle?

    The buried temple with the huge roller ball will probably be discovered Real Soon Now.

    And the giant apes.

  28. Fuck you, you hater! by denzacar · · Score: 1

    That's not a pyramid, it's just a vegetation encrusted natural phenomenon like the "pyramids" in Bosnia.

    There's a pyramid under there and Semir Osmanagic will dig it up and prove everyone that it was built by Pleiadians!
    Then, entire world will know the Faber College Theme - i.e. our national anthem.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  29. A Pyramid? by MagickalMyst · · Score: 1

    Perhaps there is a secret civilization living in a lost city accessed though a hidden pyramid?

    At least that was the story in D&D Module B4, The Lost City.

    (Sorry, I couldn't resist. Sometimes geekdom gets the best of me.)

    --
    Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
  30. Re:Um, TFA? by xevioso · · Score: 1

    It's possible the area was mapped previously or even visited in the 30's by that Morde person, but these Archaeologists are actually examining some of the artifacts, and from what they are saying it appears they don't correspond to any previously known artifacts from other civilizations of the time period. The Lidar mapping done indicated there were a number of cities along the river in this area that were quite sizable. They aren't ignoring the history of previous expeditions at all. The Atlantic article referenced areas T1-T4. Areas T2-T4 had been looked at previously, but not extensively or in any great detail.

    The T1 area, where they found this city, had not been looked at previously; the authors stated that to their knowledge there had not been an expedition there because it was too hard to get to.

  31. Re:Um, TFA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, its not all that hard to get to. Chris Begley did research in this area in the 1980s. A geographer friend also does research in this area, and his research area is now located in the interdicted zone where he is no longer allowed to work. But that doesn't mean that the area is either uninhabited, or hard to access. Yes, you have to either take a helicopter or more likely a canoe up the river, but the people who live there do that all the time. Chris Begley has led tours up rivers in the region for years. The expedition's own accounts of nearby clear cutting of the forests presumes that there is a way to get lumber out, either overland or floating it down the river. The LIDAR images show the sites are arranged along the first and second river terraces, and their own photographs show the first terrace has been logged so that its grassland and not forest. The photo of their camp set up near the site shows a felled tree cut up into sections by a saw. Said tree was cut at least 20-30 years ago, not by them, so somebody cut lumber there. The artifacts they found correspond to the kinds of artifacts Begley found in his survey. The "sculptures" photographed are pieces of figural metates common in that region. Finally, its not an old growth forest since this area was extensively logged for mahogany, cedar, and logwood up until the 1930s when almost all the valuable trees had been cut. The very first Honduran artifacts ever collected by a museum (British Museum) came from this region in 1774, collected by an English wood merchant.