Lidar discovers the remains of hundreds of lost Mayans and Olmecs

An air lidar Hundreds of long-lost Maya and Olmec ceremonial sites in southern Mexico have recently been unearthed by polls. An area of ​​32,800 square kilometers was surveyed by the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography, and the data was made public. Archaeologist Takeshi Inomata and his colleagues at the University of Arizona, when they explored the area, explored the area that crosses Campeche Bay and western Maya Lowlands, mostly identified a scheme of 478 ceremonial sites that were hidden beneath. vegetation or they were simply too large to know from the ground.

“It was unthinkable to explore such a wide area until a few years ago,” Inomata said. “Publicly available lidar archeology is transforming. ”

In recent years, lidar surveys have revealed this Eleven thousand irrigation canals, roads and fortresses throughout the Mayan territory, which now borders Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. Infrared rays can penetrate dense foliage to measure the height of the earth, which often reveals features such as canals or squares left behind. The results showed that the Mayan civilization was wider, and populated with a higher density than we first thought.

The recent survey suggests that the Mayan civilization inherited some of its cultural ideas from earlier Olmecs, who advanced through the plains of southern Mexico from about 1500 BC to about 400 BC.

Cosmological Construction

The oldest known Mayan monument is also the largest; 3,000 years ago, people built a 1.4-kilometer-long earthen platform in the heart of a ceremonial center called Aguada Fenix, near what Mexico now borders Guatemala. And the 478 sites that have just been rediscovered in the surrounding region share the same basic features and design as Aguada Fenix, on a smaller scale. They are built around rectangular squares, lined with rows of earthen platforms, where large groups of people would once gather for rituals.

Inomata and his colleagues say it was probably built between the centuries 1100 BC (the same time as Aguada Fenix) and 400 BC. Their construction was probably the work of groups of different people who shared some common cultural ideas, such as how to build a ceremonial center and the importance of certain dates. In most land-supported areas, these platform-filled junctions line up to point to where the sun rises on certain days of the year.

“This means that cosmological ideas were being represented through these ceremonial spaces,” Inomata said. “At this site, people gathered according to this ceremonial calendar.” The dates vary, but they all seem to be tied to May 10, the date when the sun passes directly over it, indicating the start of the rainy season and the time to plant corn. Many of the 478 ceremonial sites represent the dawn 40, 80, or 100 days before that day.