60,000 buildings, including pyramids and places for ceremonial events, industrial-scale agricultural land and irrigation channels: Scientists have discovered a vast, hirto unknown Mayan site in administrative district of Petén in Guatemala. With a special laser technique similar to that of radar and called Light Detection and Ranging (lidar), y used canopy of jungle and discovered a region where some ten million people once lived. This figure is two to three times as high as previously assumed.
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The Foundation for Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage (Pacunam) had announced discovery. The charitable Foundation is committed to preservation of cultural heritage in Guatemala.
For many centuries, ruins have been hidden under dense plant vegetation. He probably did not make discovery on foot, says archaeologist Thomas Garrison of Ithaca College in state of New York in a communication from his institute. “In an environment where you can’t even see a few meters away, it’s very difficult to put everything toger,” he said. The hiding place in jungle has also done well to ruins: Because no one discovered it, y were hardly destroyed eir.
The LIDAR survey showed that sites were much more densely populated and more complex and more networked than thought. Several areas of a total of 2,100 square kilometers have been studied, with several important Mayan sites such as Tikal. The laser images revealed that Maya cultivated land in area almost to 100 percent. Water channels, for example, rerouted rivers from ir natural pathways. The researchers also discovered defence fences, trenches and defensive ramparts.
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The archaeologist Stephen Houston of American Brown University said in conversation with BBC, he consider discovery to be one of greatest advances in 150 years of Mayan archaeology.
The researchers are now facing challenge of doing all places laser has revealed. They hope to find re insights into life and demise of Maya. The Mayan civilization began to develop in Central America about 3,000 years ago and reached its peak in period from 250 to 900 after Christ.
