Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2018 14:50:25 GMT -5
'Game Changer': Maya Cities Unearthed In Guatemala Forest Using Lasers
By raining down laser pulses on some 770 square miles of dense forest in northern Guatemala, archaeologists have discovered 60,000 Maya structures that make up full sprawling cities.
And the new technology provides them with an unprecedented view into how the ancient civilization worked, revealing almost industrial agricultural infrastructure and new insights into Maya warfare.
"This is a game changer," says Thomas Garrison, an archaeologist at Ithaca College who is one of the leaders of the project. It changes "the base level at which we do Maya archaeology."
The data reveals that the area was three or four times more densely populated than originally thought. "I mean, we're talking about millions of people, conservatively," says Garrison. "Probably more than 10 million people."
The researchers fired LiDAR technology, short for "Light Detection and Ranging," down at the dense forest from an airplane. This research was organized by the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative, and Garrison says the area's size is "more than double any other survey that's been done with this technology."
"As it flies the laser pulses hundreds of thousands of times per second," Garrison adds. "And every time one of those lasers hits a point of resistance it stops and sends back a measurement to the plane."
Some of these pulses make it all the way down to the forest floor. The data is then used to visually strip away trees and plants, ultimately mapping only the structures that have been hidden by jungle. You can think of it as digital deforestation.
LiDAR allows scientists to accomplish years or even decades worth of mapping in a single afternoon. For example, Garrison says he was part of a team that worked for some eight years to map less than a square mile at a site called El Zotz. The plane using LiDAR took data for 67 square miles in a matter of hours.
"It's very humbling," says Garrison. "For those of us that spent our lives mapping and slogging around this area ... you just sort of have to bow before the LiDAR and accept the fact that it's better than you are."
By raining down laser pulses on some 770 square miles of dense forest in northern Guatemala, archaeologists have discovered 60,000 Maya structures that make up full sprawling cities.
And the new technology provides them with an unprecedented view into how the ancient civilization worked, revealing almost industrial agricultural infrastructure and new insights into Maya warfare.
"This is a game changer," says Thomas Garrison, an archaeologist at Ithaca College who is one of the leaders of the project. It changes "the base level at which we do Maya archaeology."
The data reveals that the area was three or four times more densely populated than originally thought. "I mean, we're talking about millions of people, conservatively," says Garrison. "Probably more than 10 million people."
The researchers fired LiDAR technology, short for "Light Detection and Ranging," down at the dense forest from an airplane. This research was organized by the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative, and Garrison says the area's size is "more than double any other survey that's been done with this technology."
"As it flies the laser pulses hundreds of thousands of times per second," Garrison adds. "And every time one of those lasers hits a point of resistance it stops and sends back a measurement to the plane."
Some of these pulses make it all the way down to the forest floor. The data is then used to visually strip away trees and plants, ultimately mapping only the structures that have been hidden by jungle. You can think of it as digital deforestation.
LiDAR allows scientists to accomplish years or even decades worth of mapping in a single afternoon. For example, Garrison says he was part of a team that worked for some eight years to map less than a square mile at a site called El Zotz. The plane using LiDAR took data for 67 square miles in a matter of hours.
"It's very humbling," says Garrison. "For those of us that spent our lives mapping and slogging around this area ... you just sort of have to bow before the LiDAR and accept the fact that it's better than you are."
Source: www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/02/582664327/game-changer-maya-cities-unearthed-in-guatemala-forest-using-lasers
What an amazing new technology! This really does sound like a game changer for archaeology. I hope this will also allow archaeologists to waste less time trying to look for dig sites and actually do some digging.
