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Laser Scans Reveal Maya 'Megalopolis' Below Guatemalan Jungle (nationalgeographic.com)
Laser-toting archaeologists have discovered an entire new city in the Central American jungle, the National Geographic reported this week. From the report: 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. 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.
How great more jungle must die.
I'm reading "Lost City of the Monkey God" by Douglas Preston right now. It's been a highly entertaining first-hand account of (what I think was) the first use of LIDAR for archaeology in the jungles of Central America, and the ground exploration that followed. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's interested in this story.
amazon link
Is LiDAR really a revolutionary technology at this point?
This use of a new technology to uncover a lost megalopolis likely illustrates a very early casualty of global warming. This drain this many people put on the ecosphere, the tremendous harvesting of trees and generation of CO2 both through respiration, livestock, and burning and obliteration of the regions wildlife resulted in their eventual self destruction and downfall. We need to recognize this as our future if we do not adjust our lifestyles; the Maya may be lost forever in the mists of history but the magnificent remains they left behind can serve warning to us who come after and uncover them of what can happen when a society ignores and tries to subvert mother nature and refuses to change.
And it will all happen again.
It's Mayan. Get it?
When the Earth realized our gaze was moving down dangerously close to the equator she yelled, "Hey! Keep your scanners up here, buddy!" ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Quick, someone call the History Channel and replace The Curse of Oak Island with The Curse of Maya Megalopolis.
I'm flabbergasted that there are so many finger-wagging posts out of the gate chastising everything from anthropogenic global warming to Western Civilization to the propensity of an advanced society to destroy itself. I just simply feel excited for the archeologists--how thrilling it must be to make such a discovery and the excitement over planning next steps to learn more.
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I'm sure was better than Lundeon or Parris or New York any pLACE THAT whitiy bilt. NOT!
Keep the whitehouse white, vote Trump & Palin 2020.
If the experience in Egypt is instructive -- and I believe it is -- look for massive looting to begin shortly.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
"Lidar originated in the early 1960s, shortly after the invention of the laser, and combined laser-focused imaging with the ability to calculate distances by measuring the time for a signal to return using appropriate sensors and data acquisition electronics."
- Wiki
I see this being pronounced in "air quotes" a la doctor evil. LiDAR has been around for a very long time now, it is hardly revolutionary. In fact there was a similar story years ago, about the exact same thing, probably just a different place (or maybe the same story now in duplicate).
It is pretty cool. However at the same time my spidey sense is going off a bit on how "undiscovered" these places were. It seems much to vast and complex to have been unnoticed entirely. Locals perhaps have known about it forever but they have just not been unearthed as it isn't worth the trouble (or it is in a difficult region to get to).
But watch out for the massive boulder.
So why ain't there any LiDARs done in sub-saharan African?
Probly because no one expects to find any major African
civilizations pre-colonialism. Not a single 2-story building.
And yet, white people are to blame for ALL of African
(american) problems.
For more info on what the Americas were like before the Europeans arrived - 1491.
It successor 1493 goes into a lot of the connections that were made around the world because of the gold and esp Silver in central America.
1493 explains how the mosquito governs where the Mason-Dixon line was put.
I'm hoping they find a ton of Mayan scripts. We have so few and finding more would tell us a great deal about their civilization. The Spanish priests burned every scrap of Mayan script they could find. Shameful.
http://dw.convertfiles.com/files/0448242001517616673/the-lost-city-of-the-monkey-god-a-true-story.pdf
This is obviously the city of Zarahemla. This is known.
Faith: Belief in Truth. Superstition: Belief in Falsehood.
The scans do not show what existed when. They show everything, assuming that everything existed and was fully populated at the same time.
Megalolopolis is great, it's got that crazy gold base. I have a feeling that it will be easy to find the Jungle Basin. But if they find Shakuras Plateau as well, we'll have to unfreeze idrA and MMA and have them go at it. Husky can cast it.