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A graduate student analyzing publicly available drone data in Mexico unexpectedly stumbled across a huge ancient Mayan city buried beneath dense jungle. For centuries, the city lay hidden amid jungle canopy in the state of Campeche, on the Gulf of Mexico. New research published Tuesday in the journal Antiquity reveals sites that in total cover area about one-and-a-half times the size of Washington, D.C.

Using advanced lidar imagery, researchers from Tulane University have discovered over 6,500 unexplored ancient Mayan settlements hidden beneath dense Mexican jungle forests.The researchers say their findings only scratch the surface of the settlements that likely populate the country's unexplored landscape.The team involved with the historic discovery employed lidar technology to scan a 50-square-mile section of the overgrown landscape in Campeche, Mexico. Like radar, which uses radio waves to image objects, lidar employs laser pulses that bounce off different materials at different rates. These reflected pulses allow researchers to peer beneath the surface of several types of terrains, including jungle forests,...

With the deployment of airborne laser sensors as well as more traditional excavation techniques, archeologists have discovered evidence of a massive and sophisticated lost city in the dense Amazon rain forest region of eastern Ecuador in the Andes foothills. Lead researcher Stephen Rostain of the National Center for Scientific Research in France told the BBC, “This is older than any other site we know in the Amazon. We have a Eurocentric view of civilization, but this shows we have to change our idea about what is culture and civilization.” According to the survey of about 200 miles in the Amazon,...

This LIDAR image provided by researchers in January 2024 shows complexes of rectangular platforms arranged around low squares and distributed along wide dug streets at the Kunguints site, Upano Valley in Ecuador. Antoine Dorison, Stéphen Rostain via AP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A study based on over 20 years of research into an ancient site in the Amazon rainforest has revealed evidence it was once a large-scale hub of interconnected cities that date back more than 2,500 years. The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science and detail the researchers’ work in mapping the network of settlements, which may be the earliest...

A Roman road network that spanned Devon and Cornwall and connected significant settlements with military forts across the two counties as well as wider Britannia has been discovered for the first time.Archaeologists at the University have used laser scans collected as part of the Environment Agency’s National LiDAR Programme to identify new sections of road west of the previously understood boundary.Using sophisticated geographical modelling techniques, which incorporate information around gradients and flood risk, the researchers have then been able to map out the full extent of the network and begin to understand the rationale for its existence.Among the things it...

Laser scans have revealed that what was thought to be an Iron Age hillfort in northwestern Spain is, in fact, an early medieval stronghold built in the fifth century A.D. and occupied for the next 200 years...The team found the stronghold on a hilltop in northwestern Spain by using lidar — light detection and ranging — to peer beneath a forest covering the ruins... revealed an early medieval fortress covering about 25 acres (10 hectares), with 30 towers and a defensive wall about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) long. The fortress seems to have been built in the first...

The year 2021 ended with a major ‘peel’ for the site as LiDAR-equipped drones helped find 12 previously unknown small structures in Machu Picchu National Park which help identify the caretakers of the complex back in the 15th century. The LiDAR also revealed previously unknown canals that show how the Incas controlled water – a feat they believed was a ‘superpower’ granted to them by the gods. As described in a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, a team of researchers from the Center for Andean Studies at the University of Warsaw and the Wroclaw (Poland) University...

Researchers have discovered nearly 500 ceremonial complexes in Mexico, and they are thought to have been of cosmic importance to Mesoamerican civilizations over 2,000 years ago. The hundreds of sites were discovered using publicly available LIDAR data collected by the Mexican government... ...It is thought they were constructed by diverse groups between 1,050 BC and 400 BC...and, and, based on they way they are facing, many seem to be aligned with the sunrise of a certain date....

Tesla's momentum and back-to-back record highs have divided some of the world's most famous investors. Billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya praised the stock's gains in a Thursday appearance on CNBC, telling investors the stock could be worth three times its already lofty valuation. "Don't sell a share," he added. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry - whose bet against the housing market was depicted in the novel and 2015 film "The Big Short" - aired his contrasting opinion Thursday night. The investor tweeted that, like his famous 2008 gambit, his short position in Tesla stands to print huge gains. "Well, my...

The great Maya "white road" that connected the cities of Coba and Yaxuna was an incredible feat of engineering. Built around A.D. 700, the 26-foot-wide road paved in white plaster extended more than 60 miles across the Yucatan Peninsula. Much of this route is today shrouded in thick vegetation, but a new lidar survey has provided researchers with high-quality images of the busy road's path. Using these images, they have detected many lost villages and more than 8,000 hidden structures that once lined the route.

In Mexico, LiDAR (light detection and ranging) equipment uncovered what researchers say is the largest and oldest known Maya monument, while in neighbouring Belize, isotopic analysis of human remains provided the earliest timeline for the adoption of maize as a staple crop. The discovery at Tabasco near the border with Guatemala suggests the Maya civilisation developed more rapidly than previously thought and hints at less social inequality than in later periods, according to the international research team led by Takeshi Inomata and Daniela Triadan from the University of Arizona US. Known as Aguada Fénix, the monument lurked beneath the surface...

A resourceful archaeologist has made the stunning discovery of 27 new ancient Mayan sites—all without ever leaving his desk. Takeshi Inomata, an researcher at the University of Arizona, made his discoveries using freely accessible light detection and ranging maps (LiDAR for short) published in 2011 by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico, according to the New York Times. The organization created the map, which surveys 4,400 square miles of land in the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, with an eye toward serving businesses and researchers. An even though the imagery is low resolution, it still suited...

Developed in China, the lidar-based system can cut through city smog to resolve human-sized features at vast distances. Long-distance photography on Earth is a tricky challenge. Capturing enough light from a subject at great distances is not easy. And even then, the atmosphere introduces distortions that can ruin the image; so does pollution, which is a particular problem in cities. That makes it hard to get any kind of image beyond a distance of a few kilometers or so (assuming the camera is mounted high enough off the ground to cope with Earth’s curvature). But in recent years, researchers have...

Cultivated fields with bounds, farms, buildings and even roads - archaeologists discovered a completely preserved layout of an ancient settlement from nearly 2,000 years ago in the Tuchola Forest. It is a unique site in Europe, emphasize the authors of the discovery. The area of the Tuchola Forest on the border of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian province and the Pomeranian province is overgrown with a thick forest. It is one of the least-explored areas in terms of archaeology in Poland... According to the researchers, the relics come from the first centuries of our era... Archaeologists remind that after hundreds of years, old...

The approach, known as light detection and ranging scanning (lidar) involves directing a rapid succession of laser pulses at the ground from an aircraft. The time and wavelength of the pulses reflected by the surface are combined with GPS and other data to produce a precise, three-dimensional map of the landscape. Crucially, the technique probes beneath foliage - useful for areas where vegetation is dense. ... The team also found that Angamuco has an unusual layout. Monuments such as pyramids and open plazas are largely concentrated in eight zones around the city's edges, rather being located in one large city...

[S]cholars digitally removed the tree canopy from aerial images of the now-unpopulated landscape, revealing the ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed. “The LiDAR images make it clear that this entire region was a settlement system whose scale and population density had been grossly underestimated,” said Thomas Garrison, an Ithaca College archaeologist....who specializes in using digital technology for archaeological research. The project mapped more than 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Petén region of Guatemala, producing the largest LiDAR data set...

The massive structure - almost a mile long - contains a spiral design, with several rectangular spirals that form a giant structure, archaeologists say. "This structure, which has dimensions of more than 1,500 m × 600 m (about 1 mile by 1,970 feet) is the most striking discovery associated with Angkor Wat to date. Its function remains unknown and, as yet, it has no known equivalent in the Angkorian world," Roland Fletcher, a University of Sydney professor, said in a statement put out by the university. Today, the spiral structure is hard to make out on the ground, having been...

Jean-Baptiste Chevance senses that we’re closing in on our target. Paused in a jungle clearing in northwestern Cambodia, the French archaeologist studies his GPS and mops the sweat from his forehead with a bandanna. The temperature is pushing 95, and the equatorial sun beats down through the forest canopy. For two hours, Chevance, known to everyone as JB, has been leading me, along with a two-man Cambodian research team, on a grueling trek. We’ve ripped our arms and faces on six-foot shrubs studded with thorns, been savaged by red biting ants, and stumbled over vines that stretch at ankle height...

Mary Beth Day, University of Cambridge Bayon temple, constructed by Angkorian King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century. The faces may be representations of Buddha, the bodhisattva Lokesvara, Jayavarman VII, or a combination. The ancient city of Angkor — the most famous monument of which is the breathtaking ruined temple of Angkor Wat — might have collapsed due to valiant but ultimately failed efforts to battle drought, scientists find. The great city of Angkor in Cambodia, first established in the ninth century, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, the major player in southeast Asia for nearly five centuries....

Australian archaeologists using complex radar and satellite technology to map the medieval city of Angkor have discovered more than 70 new temples scattered across a vast area of farmland and forests in north-west Cambodia. University of Sydney archaeologist Damian Evans said, "It's huge. We've mapped a massive settlement stretching well beyond the main temples of the World Heritage tourist area in Siem Reap. "We've found the city was roughly five times bigger than previously thought." The newly discovered ruins of the ancient Khmer empire metropolis sprawl across 1000sqkm "about 20km in every direction" outside the United Nations listed World Heritage...