Researchers have found more than 60,000 hidden Mayan ruins in Guatemala in a major archaeological breakthrough. Laser technology was used to survey digitally beneath the forest canopy, revealing houses, palaces, elevated highways, and defensive fortifications. The landscape, near already-known Mayan cities, is thought to have been home to millions more Mayans than other research had previously suggested. The researchers mapped over 810 square miles (2,100 sq km) in northern Peten.
Results from the research using "revolutionary" Lidar technology, which is short for "light detection and ranging", suggest that Central America supported an advanced civilisation more akin to sophisticated cultures like ancient Greece or China, National Geographic reports. "The Lidar images make it clear that this entire region was a settlement system whose scale and population density had been grossly underestimated," Thomas Garrison, an Ithaca College archaeologist, told the magazine.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42916261
No comments:
Post a Comment
Due to a small but consistent influx of spam, comments will now be checked before publishing. Only egregious spam/illegal/racist crap will be disapproved, everything else will be published.