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Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest
- mydriasis 4y agoSo exciting! The number of buildings in the images is insane. I wonder what they'll find if they go down and poke around a bit?
- triyambakam 4y agoThis is exciting as someone who recently discovered Graham Hancock.
- SapporoChris 4y agoWhat is exciting about Graham Hancock an easily debunked promoter of pseudoscientific theories? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock
- aww_dang 4y agoHe stimulates my imagination to propose even more fantastic "what if" scenarios. The Wikipedian, "Objective truth derives from quotable CNN articles and talk page bickering" not only misses the point, but is problematic epistemologically.
- lowkey 4y agoGraham Hancock is a journalist and a compelling science communicator. He has pursued theories outside the orthodox views of conventional archeology and, at least with the younger Dryas impact hypothesis, more and more evidence points to the fact that he may be right and conventional archeology may be wrong. Smearing him as a promoter of pseudo-scientific theories without articulating your rationale is frankly weak-sauce. I find your argument as un-compelling as those who smear others as conspiracy theorists so they can dismiss their claims without a second thought. Try harder.
- SapporoChris 4y ago>Smearing him as a promoter of pseudo-scientific theories without articulating your rationale is frankly weak-sauce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Pseudoarchaeology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Pseudoarchaeolo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Orion_correlation_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Orion_correlati... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#The_Message_of_the_Sphinx_(1996) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#The_Message_of_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Atlantis_Reborn_(1999) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Atlantis_Reborn... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Ancient_Apocalypse_(2022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Ancient_Apocaly...
- lowkey 4y agoThe Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis [1], which has a growing body of evidence to support it, if true, would cause a great deal of embarrassment to mainstream archeologists. Is it possible that this is the reason they seek to smear Graham Hancock as a pseudo-archeologist? Notably, Hancock isn’t the only one to inquire about the Orion’s Belt and the fact that the pyramids in Egypt follow an identical orientation. Dr. Carmen Boulter of the University of Calgary. was featured in, the Pyramid Code, a 5-part documentary expositing a similar hypothesis. Of course mainstream Egyptologists dismiss her position as well without providing their own counter explanation or rebutting her arguments on their merits. [1] Is it merely a coincidence that the pyramids follow the orientation of Orion’s Belt so precisely? Are you really so certain that we should dismiss all theories that counter the prevailing orthodoxy? Do you recall that the orthodox view was once that the sun circled the earth and it was heresy to claim otherwise? Given all the things we know that turned out not to be so, would it hurt to keep an open mind and judge theories based on their evidence instead of the fact that old academics who have staked their careers and reputations on not being proven wrong may in fact be wrong sometimes? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothe... [1] https://www.jasonshurka.com/thepyramidcode https://www.jasonshurka.com/thepyramidcode
- 4y ago
- wahnfrieden 4y agoTry discovering Graeber and Wengrow instead for something more realistic and just as awe inducing
- triyambakam 4y agoGraeber and Wengrow is interesting, but it's equally fantastical to Hancock's work; or equally realistic, if you prefer.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoit is speculative but the difference is that it speculates based on credible research based evidence. which is why I say "more"
- gman83 4y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU-wQVAqQnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU-wQVAqQnk
- spaceman_2020 4y agoIf I was a billionaire, I’d commission a lidar survey of the entire planet. The amount of stuff that seems to be hidden beneath forest and snow and mud and ocean is absurd.
- bahador 4y agoi think ted is overrated but i saw this recently: https://youtu.be/B6rIUxHZ9f4 https://youtu.be/B6rIUxHZ9f4
- BoxOfRain 4y agoIf I was obscenely wealthy I'd do the same for the seas and oceans, there's got to be so many fascinating wrecks out there as well as natural formations we know nothing about yet that sonar could pick up. Shipwrecks often have a limited lifespan for things to be preserved too, for example there's very little left of Lusitania's wreck that resembles a ship any more just a rusty debris field.
- rrival 4y agoSaw Sarah Parcak speak on this at her book launch @ The Explorer's Club (https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Space-Future-Shapes-Past/dp/1250198283 https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Space-Future-Shapes-Past/...). The current, viable remote observation approach for shipwrecks is to use satellite photos of sand plume disturbances near beaches to hint at underwater features worth further exploration.
- mcdonje 4y agoIf I were tetrazzinily wealthy, I'd lidar the solar system. There's no telling what we'd find in the asteroids alone.
- GordonS 4y agoAny napkin figures for how much that would cost, and how long it would take? The results could be incredible...
- 4y ago
- zznzz 4y agowhat kind of lasers / lidar technology is this that is not reflected by trees?
- unwind 4y agoGood question! According to [1], they rely on finding holmes in the foliage: Lidar, of course, does not actually see through vegetation. Rather, it sees through holes in the foliage. Some of the multiple laser pulses it emits simply find openings between leaves and branches, in much the same way that sunlight filters through the forest canopy, continuing down to the ground. [1]: https://www.gislounge.com/next-generation-lidar-seeing-the-forest-through-the-trees/#:~:text=Photogrammetry%20is%20only%20able%20to,through%20holes%20in%20the%20foliage https://www.gislounge.com/next-generation-lidar-seeing-the-f....
- geenew 4y agoIt’s a bit trickier than that; some of the photons from the pulse pass through the canopy to hit the ground. In other words, a single pulse can have multiple detected returns, some from the top of the canopy, some the middle, some the ground. It’s important to realize that the laser pulse doesn’t remain at the same diameter the whole time; it’s path looks like a cone, albeit a very narrow cone. By the time it hits the ground it can be a couple of metres in diameter. That two metre wide bunch of photons is what is travelling through the canopy. Some fraction hit the top of the canopy and are reflected; some fraction of the reflected photons travel back in a straight line to the detector, the rest are lost to the environment. The same process repeats until the pulse hits the ground, and whatever photons are left reflect back. The energy returned to the detector is a tiny fraction of the energy sent out.
- unwind 4y agoUh, also, that should be "holes", they are not looking for a British fictional detective in the dense foliage of Central America's jungles. Thanks, phone. :|
- defrost 4y agoThe usual kind. You know how light reaches the forrest floor? So does LIDAR. If you get raw data from a LIDAR device (as opposed to the usual commercial internally "processed and smoothed" relatively low frequency data stream) you get a high frequency noisy cloud. The HF cloud includes returns that bounced from the upper canopy and returns that bounced from the forrest floor. You write your filters to pick the features (tree tops, tree foor, canopy density estimates, etc) you're interested in. It's also possible to map recent snowfall depths with LIDAR | microwave RADAR tweaks.
- kristopolous 4y agoIt's a shame to think of all the ancient literature and rich history we've lost from these civilizations. I'm sure they had their Homers and Platos.
- pjmlp 4y agoThe worse part of it, compared with other lost civilizations is that we Europeans were responsible for it, in the process to make them "civilized". How it could have turned much differently if there was a pacific coexistence with the conquistadores.
- wageslave99 4y agoI know it is not an excuse but the European conquerors did the same other cultures have been doing to them for centuries. The "barbaric way of doing things" was common and was pretty extended for much part of the history. European nations had been plagued by poverty, wars, killing, totalitarianism, witch hunting... For centuries, so when they reach the New World they continue to behave the same way they have been behaving until that point. The only good part is that some countries were conquered and dominated by cultures that did not exterminated them. There was some mixing between peoples and the culture was enriched by that exchange.
- hypertele-Xii 4y agoWikipedia disagrees with you: > The Classic Maya collapse is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in archaeology. [...] Over 80 different theories or variations of theories attempting to explain the Classic Maya collapse have been identified. From climate change to deforestation to lack of action by Maya kings, there is no universally accepted collapse theory, [...] What's your source or authority for claiming it was definitively the conquistadores?
- makomk 4y agoIf the dating estimates in the article are right, I think this might even have been caused by the prior Preclassic Collapse a few centuries before that. Remember, the dates given are a full two millenia before colonialism and a lot can happen to cause societies to change and history and knowledge to be lost over that timescale; our historical knowledge of much of Europe during this time period isn't exactly great either.
- RaSoJo 4y agoLet us bid adieu to that chunk of rain forest. First them archeologists will go scrounging, followed closely by the tourists. Do these 'historic' finds serve any purpose for our future generations? Or would those trees have served our children better?
- hypertele-Xii 4y agoArcheology studies past purpose, not future, and unless you're going to claim the entire science of history useless, better get used to the idea that some trees have to be sacrificed for science. Some 14120 square miles of Guatemala is forested. While the 650 square miles of this archeological site represents a not-insignificant 4.6% of its forests, I doubt the archeologists are going to fell every tree and dig up every stump. Since you care so much about trees, I have to ask, how many trees have you personally planted? How much money have you donated to tree-planting programs? Otherwise you're just virtue-signaling.
- Rebelgecko 4y agoI don't think any of those things you fear came to pass after El Mirador was discovered. Why would this site be any different?
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoWhen those civilizations were active, there were few trees. It's wrong to return that part of the world to a previous state?
- d--b 4y agoIs there some kind of openstreetmap layer where lidar-surveyed sites are aggregated? It'd be nice
- maxerickson 4y agoThe US has 3dep, which is a USGS program to aggregate and publish various federal and state data. Not really the same thing you are talking about, and not global, but it can be fascinating to look at. You can see old logging railroads and things like that in Michigan, and trace them to where they collected and dumped into rivers.
- heliodor 4y agoCatalog map is at: https://apps.nationalmap.gov/lidar-explorer/ https://apps.nationalmap.gov/lidar-explorer/ Click on a covered area, click one of the green icons listed next to each data set, then click on Potree Viewer in order to get to the 3D viewer (Potree in this case; I haven't tried the other one much). Scroll down the sidebar and change the dropdown that says "intensity" to say "elevation". Right below that, tweak the slider bar to select the min and max elevations so that the landscape you're looking at gets colored with all the colors. At the very top, reduce the radius to 0 and increase the strength to 1.0. And if your hardware can handle it, increase the point budget to whatever is still responsive. Lastly, under filters, deselect everything except ground, if you want to see the ground instead of vegetation and buildings. Also worth mentioning is the shaded relief derived from all this data, which you can find at: https://apps.nationalmap.gov/3depdem/ https://apps.nationalmap.gov/3depdem/ It's very detailed and is a great starting point for your exploration of an area before jumping into the 3D viewer.
- colomon 4y agoOoo, I'll have to look into that. I had a fun couple of days a few years ago comparing Google Maps satellite images from St Clair County, MI with the old maps which showed where the Interurban ran. It was really impressive how much you could still see the routes from above, even though the tracks were torn up 80+ years ago...
- comprambler 4y agoI'm pretty sure this is related to https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/ancient-builders-of-the-amazon/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/ancient-builders-of-the-...
- antiterra 4y agoCheck out Lost Cities with Albert Lin if you want to see some of this stuff being done and previous discoveries. It feels a little docu-dramatized but neat nonetheless.
- arunix 4y agoAlso two episodes of Expedition Unknown: https://expeditionunknown.fandom.com/wiki/Pyramids_of_Legends https://expeditionunknown.fandom.com/wiki/Pyramids_of_Legend... https://expeditionunknown.fandom.com/wiki/Lost_City_of_El_Mirador https://expeditionunknown.fandom.com/wiki/Lost_City_of_El_Mi...