11 ms·

Archaeologists Discover Lost Civilization in Guatemala

156 points by 8bitsrule 4y ago

Herodotus38 4y ago
Obligatory direct link to the paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/lidar-analyses-in-the-contiguous-miradorcalakmul-karst-basin-guatemala-an-introduction-to-new-perspectives-on-regional-early-maya-socioeconomic-and-political-organization/31075DFA8ADBAA5E7C7320CA6DB93E5E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/...
- blakesterz 4y ago
  There are some really cool images there.
  - gordondavidf 4y ago
    +1 to this. Strongly recommend a glance of the paper for the images.
Gabriel_Martin 4y ago
I find LiDAR scanning through canopies super fascinating, but I ended up going down a different rabbit hole while reading this. I found the petition linked below after a cursory look into the doctor of archeology mentioned within this article. I wonder how this work fits into the aspirations mentioned within it. To me that petition brought up thoughts about how one might manage projects like this with respect to local population, and if/how efforts like this can aspire to maximize positive impacts for local populations, relating to economic mobility. It also brought up concerns about the worst parts of colonialism/neo-colonialism, namely the looting and suppression of local populations for the economic interests of foreign or state related interests. I wonder how the archeologist in question changed his methodologies (if at all) in response to the petition. https://www.change.org/p/society-for-american-archaeology-remove-dr-richard-hansen-from-the-society-for-american-archaeology https://www.change.org/p/society-for-american-archaeology-re...
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  I wish Hansen would go into a quiet retirement somewhere. He's notorious in the American archaeological community and frankly something of a political bogeyman for many of the political groups in Central America. He's been accused of everything from being involved with human/drug trafficking groups, to rigging elections, to pursuing shadowy mormon illuminati goals. He hasn't done any favors to his reputation by associating with unsavory individuals like Mel Gibson for funding and helping to produce whatever the hell Apocalypto was. The Mirador basin his project is named after is widely considered to be nonexistent and not an isolated geographic region in its own right. I don't personally believe much of the stuff that's been said about him (having never met the guy) because it's so cartoonishly evil, but he's so politically radioactive that anything he might try to do to benefit local communities is never going to get their support.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    Apocalypto was a fun movie, I liked it.
    - AlotOfReading 4y ago
      Hey, you do you. Mayanists absolutely hate it for what I consider pretty decent reasons. Some historical inaccuracies would normally be tolerable, but Apocalypto's inaccuracies tend to dehumanize the Maya it depicts. Worse, it was produced less than a decade after an internationally recognized genocide in which modern Maya people were portrayed as bloodthirsty savages by propaganda using similar stereotypes. You can still find the old reviews from academics in various places like [1]. [1] https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apocalypto.html https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apoc...
      - throwawaylinux 4y ago
        I don't think it portrays them that way at all. If it did claim to have any bearing on reality it shows good and bad. War and slavery and murder and atrocities by the ruling class down to foot soldiers. I can watch movies fictional or not about Nazis, as well as Vietnam, Iraq, Cambodia and other western interventions and wars -- without thinking that somehow portrays white or European people as bloodthirsty savages. I think it's pretty infantilizing to think a movie like that is "problematic", doesn't surprise me to see this kind of ultra-PC high horsemanship coming from academia but I think their fanciful claims about the risk of hate crimes and neo nazis due this film are a load of unsubstantiated and unscientific claptrap that they're just making up.
ownlife 4y ago
Cool TED Talk on LiDAR - "Let's scan the whole planet with LiDAR" https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_fisher_let_s_scan_the_whole_planet_with_lidar?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_fisher_let_s_scan_the_whole_... YouTube link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6rIUxHZ9f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6rIUxHZ9f4
jonnycomputer 4y ago
I really don't like the title of this submission. It is unnecessarily sensationalist. And why link to Vice.com when there is an open paper you can link to instead [1]? Here is the abstract of that paper: LiDAR coverage of a large contiguous area within the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB) of northern Guatemala has identified a concentration of Preclassic Maya sites (ca. 1000 b.c.–a.d. 150) connected by causeways, forming a web of implied social, political, and economic interactions. This article is an introduction to one of the largest, contiguous, regional LiDAR studies published to date in the Maya Lowlands. More than 775 ancient Maya settlements are identified within the MCKB, and 189 more in the surrounding karstic ridge, which we condensed into 417 ancient cities, towns, and villages of at least six preliminary tiers based on surface area, volumetrics, and architectural configurations. Many tiered sites date to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods, as determined by archaeological testing, and volumetrics of contemporaneously constructed and/or occupied architecture with similar morphological characteristics. Monumental architecture, consistent architectural formats, specific site boundaries, water management/collection facilities, and 177 km of elevated Preclassic causeways suggest labor investments that defy organizational capabilities of lesser polities and potentially portray the strategies of governance in the Preclassic period. Settlement distributions, architectural continuities, chronological contemporaneity, and volumetric considerations of sites provide evidence for early centralized administrative and socio-economic strategies within a defined geographical region. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/lidar-analyses-in-the-contiguous-miradorcalakmul-karst-basin-guatemala-an-introduction-to-new-perspectives-on-regional-early-maya-socioeconomic-and-political-organization/31075DFA8ADBAA5E7C7320CA6DB93E5E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
groffee 4y ago
Lost to who? Ask the locals and they'll know all about it.
- kshahkshah 4y ago
  Exactly, my buddy who used to regularly visit Guatemala has paid drivers to bring him out to still-covered ruins and explore for the day. The locals know about this stuff.
- college_physics 4y ago
  Yes but they dont have a fancy lidar so why bother. Reminds me of this story (here simplified and from memory :-) about ancient Maya script that was deciphered once the brilliant code breakers had the inspiration to talk to the locals (who were still talking the script)
  - Jun8 4y ago
    I know you say you’re describing from memory but wanted to comment in case other people read this comment and get the wrong idea: the decipherment of Maya writing was nothing like described here. If you’re interested, a great popular account is given in Micheal Coe’s book Breaking the Maya Code or you can read an interview with David Stuart, who started work on Maya writing when he was ten! https://nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews/Stuart_D_TRANSCRIPT.pdf#page61 https://nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews/St...
    - college_physics 4y ago
      The controversy of the dominant early deciphering school ignoring the phonetic approach of the linguist Knorozov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov seems a very real and important episode in the decipherement saga. The context here is not the history of Mayan glyph deciphering but the role of utilizing local knowledge
- UberFly 4y ago
  Maybe "obscured by time" is a better description. Generally they know something was there, but the details and memories are as buried as the remnants of the place.
NelsonMinar 4y ago
If this interests you, read Charles Mann's book 1491. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491
- 8bitsrule 4y ago
  Great book ... and so disorienting! Almost everything I thought I knew about the history of South America had to be completely revised. And the evidence was right there all the time, waiting for someone to decode it. Also recommend the sequel 1493. I'll never take any 'historical fact' for granted again.
ks2048 4y ago
There's long been a serious problem with looting at Maya sites. I wonder how that affects what they publish with these surveys.
zeristor 4y ago
Strange I had just been listening to a podcast about China funding project in the Americas and it talked at length about building an expensive train line in Southern Mexico. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4kxr https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4kxr It does seem strange that the US is making laws for territory in a foreign country. Vice video about it: https://youtu.be/uiZZQhnGveE https://youtu.be/uiZZQhnGveE

156 points by 8bitsrule 4y ago

Obligatory direct link to the paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/lidar-analyses-in-the-contiguous-miradorcalakmul-karst-basin-guatemala-an-introduction-to-new-perspectives-on-regional-early-maya-socioeconomic-and-political-organization/31075DFA8ADBAA5E7C7320CA6DB93E5E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/...

blakesterz 4y ago
There are some really cool images there.
- gordondavidf 4y ago
  +1 to this. Strongly recommend a glance of the paper for the images.

Gabriel_Martin 4y ago

I find LiDAR scanning through canopies super fascinating, but I ended up going down a different rabbit hole while reading this. I found the petition linked below after a cursory look into the doctor of archeology mentioned within this article. I wonder how this work fits into the aspirations mentioned within it. To me that petition brought up thoughts about how one might manage projects like this with respect to local population, and if/how efforts like this can aspire to maximize positive impacts for local populations, relating to economic mobility. It also brought up concerns about the worst parts of colonialism/neo-colonialism, namely the looting and suppression of local populations for the economic interests of foreign or state related interests. I wonder how the archeologist in question changed his methodologies (if at all) in response to the petition. https://www.change.org/p/society-for-american-archaeology-remove-dr-richard-hansen-from-the-society-for-american-archaeology https://www.change.org/p/society-for-american-archaeology-re...

AlotOfReading 4y ago
I wish Hansen would go into a quiet retirement somewhere. He's notorious in the American archaeological community and frankly something of a political bogeyman for many of the political groups in Central America. He's been accused of everything from being involved with human/drug trafficking groups, to rigging elections, to pursuing shadowy mormon illuminati goals. He hasn't done any favors to his reputation by associating with unsavory individuals like Mel Gibson for funding and helping to produce whatever the hell Apocalypto was. The Mirador basin his project is named after is widely considered to be nonexistent and not an isolated geographic region in its own right. I don't personally believe much of the stuff that's been said about him (having never met the guy) because it's so cartoonishly evil, but he's so politically radioactive that anything he might try to do to benefit local communities is never going to get their support.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  Apocalypto was a fun movie, I liked it.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    Hey, you do you. Mayanists absolutely hate it for what I consider pretty decent reasons. Some historical inaccuracies would normally be tolerable, but Apocalypto's inaccuracies tend to dehumanize the Maya it depicts. Worse, it was produced less than a decade after an internationally recognized genocide in which modern Maya people were portrayed as bloodthirsty savages by propaganda using similar stereotypes. You can still find the old reviews from academics in various places like [1]. [1] https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apocalypto.html https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/apoc...
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
      I don't think it portrays them that way at all. If it did claim to have any bearing on reality it shows good and bad. War and slavery and murder and atrocities by the ruling class down to foot soldiers. I can watch movies fictional or not about Nazis, as well as Vietnam, Iraq, Cambodia and other western interventions and wars -- without thinking that somehow portrays white or European people as bloodthirsty savages. I think it's pretty infantilizing to think a movie like that is "problematic", doesn't surprise me to see this kind of ultra-PC high horsemanship coming from academia but I think their fanciful claims about the risk of hate crimes and neo nazis due this film are a load of unsubstantiated and unscientific claptrap that they're just making up.

ownlife 4y ago

Cool TED Talk on LiDAR - "Let's scan the whole planet with LiDAR" https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_fisher_let_s_scan_the_whole_planet_with_lidar?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_fisher_let_s_scan_the_whole_... YouTube link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6rIUxHZ9f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6rIUxHZ9f4

jonnycomputer 4y ago

I really don't like the title of this submission. It is unnecessarily sensationalist. And why link to Vice.com when there is an open paper you can link to instead [1]? Here is the abstract of that paper: LiDAR coverage of a large contiguous area within the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB) of northern Guatemala has identified a concentration of Preclassic Maya sites (ca. 1000 b.c.–a.d. 150) connected by causeways, forming a web of implied social, political, and economic interactions. This article is an introduction to one of the largest, contiguous, regional LiDAR studies published to date in the Maya Lowlands. More than 775 ancient Maya settlements are identified within the MCKB, and 189 more in the surrounding karstic ridge, which we condensed into 417 ancient cities, towns, and villages of at least six preliminary tiers based on surface area, volumetrics, and architectural configurations. Many tiered sites date to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods, as determined by archaeological testing, and volumetrics of contemporaneously constructed and/or occupied architecture with similar morphological characteristics. Monumental architecture, consistent architectural formats, specific site boundaries, water management/collection facilities, and 177 km of elevated Preclassic causeways suggest labor investments that defy organizational capabilities of lesser polities and potentially portray the strategies of governance in the Preclassic period. Settlement distributions, architectural continuities, chronological contemporaneity, and volumetric considerations of sites provide evidence for early centralized administrative and socio-economic strategies within a defined geographical region. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/lidar-analyses-in-the-contiguous-miradorcalakmul-karst-basin-guatemala-an-introduction-to-new-perspectives-on-regional-early-maya-socioeconomic-and-political-organization/31075DFA8ADBAA5E7C7320CA6DB93E5E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

groffee 4y ago

Lost to who? Ask the locals and they'll know all about it.

kshahkshah 4y ago
Exactly, my buddy who used to regularly visit Guatemala has paid drivers to bring him out to still-covered ruins and explore for the day. The locals know about this stuff.
college_physics 4y ago
Yes but they dont have a fancy lidar so why bother. Reminds me of this story (here simplified and from memory :-) about ancient Maya script that was deciphered once the brilliant code breakers had the inspiration to talk to the locals (who were still talking the script)
- Jun8 4y ago
  I know you say you’re describing from memory but wanted to comment in case other people read this comment and get the wrong idea: the decipherment of Maya writing was nothing like described here. If you’re interested, a great popular account is given in Micheal Coe’s book Breaking the Maya Code or you can read an interview with David Stuart, who started work on Maya writing when he was ten! https://nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews/Stuart_D_TRANSCRIPT.pdf#page61 https://nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews/St...
  - college_physics 4y ago
    The controversy of the dominant early deciphering school ignoring the phonetic approach of the linguist Knorozov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov seems a very real and important episode in the decipherement saga. The context here is not the history of Mayan glyph deciphering but the role of utilizing local knowledge
UberFly 4y ago
Maybe "obscured by time" is a better description. Generally they know something was there, but the details and memories are as buried as the remnants of the place.

NelsonMinar 4y ago

If this interests you, read Charles Mann's book 1491. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491

8bitsrule 4y ago
Great book ... and so disorienting! Almost everything I thought I knew about the history of South America had to be completely revised. And the evidence was right there all the time, waiting for someone to decode it. Also recommend the sequel 1493. I'll never take any 'historical fact' for granted again.

ks2048 4y ago

There's long been a serious problem with looting at Maya sites. I wonder how that affects what they publish with these surveys.

zeristor 4y ago

Strange I had just been listening to a podcast about China funding project in the Americas and it talked at length about building an expensive train line in Southern Mexico. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4kxr https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4kxr It does seem strange that the US is making laws for territory in a foreign country. Vice video about it: https://youtu.be/uiZZQhnGveE https://youtu.be/uiZZQhnGveE