Sprawling Maya settlements revealed by LIDAR

[Brian G Turner]

Looks like the Maya civilization was far larger and more complex than anyone ever imagined:
Sprawling Mayan cities uncovered by lasers

 

[BAYLOR]

More incredible discoveries.

 

[Ursa major]

From the BBC article to which Brian linked:

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.

The Grauniad's article on this has Garrison adding:

“It’s this hilltop citadel that has these ditch and rampart systems ... when I went there, one of these things [was] nine meters tall,” he noted.

 

[DrMclony]

I was very interested to read about this. I always felt there had to be something more there.

 

[sknox]

I cannot keep from envisioning Mayans sprawling.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Here is a more in-depth lecture from Penn University on this topic!

 

[CTRandall]

Supercool! Don't know if anyone's read Charles Mann's 1491 (nonfiction about recent archaeological discoveries and what they mean for our understanding of pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas--including the possibilty that big chunks of the Amazon were cultivated as a giant orchard and nuttery). It seems the jungles and forests of Central and South America are only beginning to reveal their secrets.