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<< News >> Mapping Mayan: LiDAR Reveals Further Secrets of Classical Guatemalan Cities

Submitted by bat400 on Tuesday, 06 February 2018  Page Views: 2262

DiscoveriesCountry: Guatemala
Tikal
Tikal submitted by bat400 : Tikal, Guatemala. Photo: B.Zerfas, 2008. (Vote or comment on this photo)
The results of LiDAR survey of 2,100-square kilometers surrounding Mayan sites in Guatemala's El Peten are revealing thousands of previously undocumented structures. Of major interest are structural features including irrigation and agricultural fields, and fortresses and linked watchtowers. The area mapped includes El Zotz and Tikal, where the survey may further expand the borders of this Mayan city-state.

Unlike previous ground surveys the LiDAR technique allows a much more rapid and complete recording of surface features and further analysis can pick out man made structures.
According to archaeologists Thomas Garrison, assistant professor of anthropology at Ithaca College, “Everyone is seeing larger, denser sites. Everyone,” Garrison said. “There's a spectrum to it, for sure, but that's a universal: everyone has missed settlement in their [previous] mapping.”

The LiDAR survey is a collaboration between archaeologists from the U.S., Europe and Guatemala, and the Fundación PACUNAM (Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya), a Guatemalan philanthropic and cultural heritage preservation organization. Researchers include Garrison of Ithaca College and Marcello A Canuto, a professor of anthropology at Tulane University.

For more see Ithaca College news release and
news from The Guardian.

Note: Detailed aerial images reveal a remarkably ambitious transportation network consisting of 17 roads, as well and the infrastructure for agriculture and defense.

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"Mapping Mayan: LiDAR Reveals Further Secrets of Classical Guatemalan Cities" | Login/Create an Account | 1 comment
  
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Thousands of Maya Structures Discovered in Guatemala by bat400 on Wednesday, 07 February 2018
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From Live Science:

"An aerial survey over northern Guatemala has turned up over 60,000 new Maya structures, including pyramids, causeways, house foundations and defensive fortifications.

"It's a watershed discovery that has already led archaeologists to new sites to excavate and explore. The findings may also revise estimates of how many ancient Maya once lived in the region upward by "multiple factors," said Tom Garrison, an archaeologist who specializes in the Maya culture and is part of the consortium that funded and organized the survey. Far more ancient Maya lived on the landscape than there are people in the region today, Garrison told Live Science, and they did it without the destructive slash-and-burn agriculture that is crippling the jungle in modern times.

"The finding of a sprawling Maya population shows there are means of supporting people in the area without destroying the forest, said Lisa Lucero, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois who was not involved in the new survey."

Source: http://www.livescience.com

Also: Photos at livescience
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