When you purchase through contact on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it mould .
Hidden Civilization
Maya pyramids peep from the jungle in this aerial icon from northern Guatemala . scientist studying the ancient Maya cultivation have just discharge a 810 square land mile ( 2,100 square kilometer ) study of 10 sites in northerly Guatemala using LiDAR , a technology that apply laser pulse to represent topography , stripping off obscuring vegetation . [ Read more about the Maya surveys ]
What Lies Beneath
The same site appears in much greater detail in a LiDAR image . Roads and foundations become apparent . In the Modern LiDAR resume , research worker discovered 60,000 social organisation that had never been mapped before , some in very well - researched Maya sites . Others were diffuse far and astray through the jungle .
Featureless Forest
The dim Guatemalan jungle hides grounds of ancient Maya colonisation . Archaeologists say it ’s wanton to take the air within a few dozen human foot of a structure and never even get it on it ’s there . Wide - run LiDAR surveys can represent in a few time of day what would have taken archaeologists decades . “LiDAR is going to be to our understanding of small town patterns of ancient societies what radiocarbon date has been to our understanding of their chronology , which is to say , revolutionary , " said Maya archaeologist David Freidel of Washington University in St. Louis .
Hidden Worlds
That featureless timber in the previous simulacrum hide out all sort of ancient Maya secrets . This simulacrum shows a LiDAR scan of the same spot show in the previous photograph . Architectural features hidden beneath stain and plant suddenly become visible . The new LiDAR survey leave a literal treasure map to lead researchers to young site to excavate . Friedel and his team plan to spend the next three years investigating novel features from the LiDAR sight in their study site , El Peru - Waka ' in northwestern Peten .
Superimposed
The jungle photograph and the LiDAR scan are superimposed in this image , show how Maya structures can be hidden in plain site in the dense vegetation . Archaeologists first used LiDAR to surveil Maya expanse in Belize in 2009 . It ’s been " stunningly successful , " said University of Colorado , Boulder , anthropologist Payson Sheets . " As of justly now , " Sheets evidence Live Science , " only a teeny - tiny fraction of one percent of the Maya sphere has been track in LiDAR , so the future is very bright . "
Living in the Landscape
Maya social organization are disperse across the jungle in this LiDAR ikon lease over northern Guatemala . The determination of the survey hint that the universe was far denser in the Maya lowlands than antecedently conceive , according to sight archaeologist Tom Garrison . That ’s a fascinating determination , said Maya expert Lisa Lucero of the University of Illinois , who was not ask in the project ; today , solidus - and - burn agriculture patronize far few the great unwashed , with far greater devastation . The ancient Maya were somehow contend the woods to substantiate expectant numbers of people , she said , and doing so in a more sustainable way .
Guatemala from Above
Scientist Albert Lin ( left ) , Tom Garrison ( in-between ) and Francisco Estrada - Belli ( right ) examine the topography of northern Guatemala as seen by the naked middle . A new documentary , Lost Treasures of the Maya Snake Kings , will premiere on Tuesday , Feb. 6 9/8c on the National Geographic canal to spotlight some of the LiDAR uncovering .
A Lost World, Revealed
Albert Lin , Tom Garrison and Francisco Estrada - Belli look at the same scence through LiDAR , a view that reveal elaborated topography and a whole host of structures swallowed by the Guatemalan jungle . Using LiDAR , Garrison and his colleagues discovered Modern fortifications near their study size of it of El Zotz in Guatemala . They hope to dig up the 30 - foot ( 9 meter ) wall in the descend field of battle seasons .
