The Mayan civilization was in the most amazing period of civilization more than 1,000 years ago, but modern technology has just uncovered the secrets of this ancient Mexican and Central American culture-the exploration of this civilization is happening at an unprecedented rate. As researchers have discovered new ways to identify and study ancient ruins, a series of recent discoveries are changing the field of Mayan archeology. In 2018, Guatemalan archaeologists announced the discovery of thousands of unknown Mayan structures hidden in the overgrown plain. But this kind of discovery is not the same as the movie "Raiders of Treasure Hunt", which is explored by cutting down the jungle and advancing. On the contrary, these ancient ruins can be recognized remotely, thanks to the aircraft of the National Aeronautical Laser Mapping Center equipped with high-tech light detection and ranging (lidar) mapping tools. The lidar uses laser pulses connected to the GPS system to make topographic measurements and draw a three-dimensional map of the earth's surface. Lidar may be able to detect a wide geographical area that takes years to draw on foot in a flash. Archaeologist Marcello Canuto said in an interview with artnet News: "Lidar shows us something that may not be visible after 100 years of research, but now we have mastered these needs It’s not an exaggeration to understand the results of 100 years of research.” Kanuto is a professor of anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, director of the Middle American Research Institute, and a Guatemalan landmark laser Member of the supervision committee of the LiDAR initiative. The project was funded by Pacunam, the Maya Cultural Heritage Foundation of Guatemala in 2016.
Archaeologists have long realized the great potential of lidar. As early as 2009, this technology played a huge role by scanning the 80 square miles area of the Caracol archaeological site in Belize. "We started experimenting with lidar in 2005. Everyone says we are lunatics, which doesn't work," Arlen Chase, co-director of the Caracol website, told artnet News. Chase is now an anthropology professor at Pomona College in Clermont, California, and he is convinced that lidar is the answer prayed by archaeologists. But when the scan results finally came out, "I was completely stunned," he said. "Its effect far exceeds our craziest dreams." For many years, the Caracol team has realized that their work place is extending deep into the jungle, but it is another matter to prove this. Chase said: "Caracol has more than 200 square kilometers." Without lidar, it is impossible for our colleagues to believe this in 2009. "This map project shows how big the city really is, revealing the causeways and other buildings that were previously hidden under the jungle. Karakol is a huge continuous settlement, which shows that the Mayans have greatly changed their Environmental landscape. "Lidar is making disruptive changes," Chase said. "This actually changed our entire view of Gu Maya. Every time it covers a new field, "you will start to see different things." Over the past decade, many archaeological projects in the area have begun to use lidar, increasingly revealing this lost civilization. But the Pakunum project is unprecedented. No one has ever scanned such a large geographic area with lidar.
"As an expert in remote sensing archaeology, I have been using satellite images for years to try to find ruins under the canopy of dense jungles," Francisco Estrada-Belly, professor of anthropology at Tulane University Estrada-Belli) told artnet News in an email, "When I learned about lidar, at first I was very skeptical because it seemed to only map a small area. Then we learned that as long as there is enough money , We may be able to draw a very large map in a few days, which is much more than the funds we can raise in a quarter of the expedition." Canuto and Estrada Bailey are One of the principal investigators of the groundbreaking Lidar project initiated by Pakunum. As a Mayan cultural heritage foundation in cooperation with a large number of Guatemalan archaeological sites, Pakunum is the perfect organization to oversee projects of this scale. Kanuto explained: "Most researchers are interested in their own specific locations and surrounding areas. Lidar is very expensive. If a researcher says,'Hey, give me $500,000 or $1 million to cover this entire I don’t have any huge field of research licenses,’ it doesn’t work. Paknam is a perfect entity able to do lidar in these different areas and then coordinate the results.” According to Caracol’s research results, As well as other sites detected by lidar, archaeologists hope to be able to identify new architectural elements built by the Maya. Chase said: "This technology is great. We know it will find all kinds of interesting things. But no one can predict how widespread these discoveries will be."
