Sprawling Maya network discovered under Guatemala jungle - 60,000 ruins!

[KelleyKramer]

Sprawling Maya network discovered under Guatemala jungle


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42916261



Most structures are believed to be stone platforms for pole-and-thatch homes


Researchers have found more than 60,000 hidden Maya 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 Maya cities, is thought to have been home to millions more people than other research had previously suggested.

The researchers mapped over 810 square miles (2,100 sq km) in northern Peten. Archaeologists believe the cutting-edge technology will change the way the world will see the Maya civilisation.

"I think this is one of the greatest advances in over 150 years of Maya archaeology," said Stephen Houston, Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology at Brown University. Mr Houston told the BBC that after decades of work in the archaeological field, he found the magnitude of the recent survey "breathtaking". He added, "I know it sounds hyperbolic but when I saw the [Lidar] imagery, it did bring tears to my eyes."

-snip-

Archaeologists excavating a Maya site called El Zotz in northern Guatemala, painstakingly mapped the landscape for years. But the Lidar survey revealed kilometres of fortification wall that the team had never noticed before. "Maybe, eventually, we would have gotten to this hilltop where this fortress is, but I was within about 150 feet of it in 2010 and didn't see anything," Mr Garrison told Live Science.


More on the link
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42916261


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[triron]

1. Wow!

Estimates are (I have been told by Mexican guides) that the current population of Mayan descent are 2nd to the Spanish.

[GaryCnf]

2. Walked

And never known.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. El Zotz ?!?

Sounds like something from an old B.C. cartoon.

[kcr]

4. What an incredible find

60,000 of them. And they were within 150 feet at one time and didn't know it.