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More than 61,000 ancient Mayan structures – from large pyramids to individual houses – hid under the dense canopy of the Guatemalan jungle, revealing clues to agricultural practices, infrastructure, politics and the economy of the country. ancient culture, according to a new aerial survey.
The Guatemalan jungle is thick and hard to explore. The researchers mapped the terrain with the help of a technology known as light detection and telemetry, or lidar. Lidar images were captured during aerial surveys of the Mayan Plain, an area of more than 2,100 square kilometers. [See Photos from the Maya Lidar survey]
"Since lidar technology is able to pierce the thick canopy of the forest and map the entities on the surface of the Earth, it can be used to produce ground maps allowing us to identify the human-made entities such as walls, roads or buildings ". Marcello Canuto, director of the Mid-American Research Institute of Tulane University in New Orleans, said in a statement.
The aerial lidar survey covered 12 distinct areas in Peten, Guatemala, and included both rural and urban Mayan settlement areas. After analyzing the images (isolated houses, large palaces, ceremonial centers and pyramids), the researchers determined that nearly 11 million people lived in the Mayan shallows at the end of the classical period, from 650 to 800 AD. The researchers noted these calculations in their study published Friday, Sept. 28, online in the journal Science.
It would have taken a massive agricultural effort to support such a large population, the researchers said. Thus, it was not surprising that the lidar survey revealed that most wetlands in the region were heavily modified for agriculture, the researchers said.
A recently discovered site north of Tikal shows the range of features revealed by lidar. The long building (top right) is part of the so-called Group E complex, which dates largely before 500 BC. On the other side of the valley is an acropolis, probably younger than 1000 years old.
Credit: Luke Auld-Thomas / PACUNAM
In total, surveys revealed approximately 362 km2 of terraces and other modified farmland, as well as 952 km2 of farmland.
The lidar analysis (bottom) shows the hidden structures in the jungle of northern Guatemala (top).
Credit: PACUNAM / Estrada-Belli
In addition, lidar analysis uncovered 40 square miles (110 square kilometers) of road networks located in and between distant towns and villages, some of which were heavily fortified. This discovery highlighted the links between the Mayan hinterland and urban centers, the researchers said.
"As a whole, the terraces and irrigation canals, reservoirs, fortifications and causeways reveal an astonishing amount of land modifications made by the Maya on their entire landscape on a scale previously unimaginable" Francisco Estrada-Belli, research assistant, professor of anthropology at Tulane University and director of the Holmul archaeological project, says the statement.
Lidar field data analysis can take months. Here, relief relief (left) can hide important details, such as low mounds. More complex visualizations, such as the red relief map (center), may reveal these details. But more analysis is needed to identify and rank characteristics (right). The three images show the site of Dos Torres, located between the cities of Tikal and Uaxactun.
Credit: Luke Auld-Thomas and Marcello A. Canuto / PACUNAM
However, even though the lidar evaluation revealed many structures until then unknown, the researchers have described it as a complement to traditional archeology without replacing it. In a perspective article on new research published in the same journal, Anabel Ford, an assistant professor of archeology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Sherman Horn, visiting professor of archeology at the Grand Valley State University, Michigan, wrote the following: even with lidar, "boots on the ground" would still be needed.
Originally published on Live Science.
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