Thanks to digital technology, 60,000 previously unknown Indian structures have been found.
This discovery completely turned the idea of scientists about the scale and level of development of pre-Columbian civilizations in South America.
“Until recently, most historians agreed with an estimate of the population of the Mayan civilization at 5 million people,” Francisco Estrada-Belli, professor of archeology at Tulane University, whose team has been excavating the ancient city of Holmul in Guatemala since 2000, told National Geographic magazine. - Now, possessing new knowledge, we understand how wrong we were. The Maya numbered at least 10-15 million people. At its peak (approximately 250-900 AD), this civilization covered an area about twice the size of medieval England. But at the same time, the Mayan state was much more densely populated.
New discoveries were made thanks to the use of revolutionary technology for scanning the earth's surface using lidars (LIDAR - LIght Detection And Ranging, in translation "detection and ranging using light"). This research method is also called laser radar. The high accuracy of topographic data (the error is ± 2.5 cm), which are obtained with its help, makes it possible, during shooting from an airplane, to find the remains of buildings and structures where it is impossible to do this using conventional methods. For the first time, lidars began to be used in the 80s of the last century, but a qualitative leap took place with the development of software for image processing. Signals of modern lidars are capable of “piercing” tree crowns, and they are used as a basis for making 3D models with the effect of “bare ground”. In this way,dense vegetation no longer prevents archaeologists from obtaining ultra-precise scans of the terrain.
It is this technology that was used by archaeologists who were engaged in drawing up a map of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve (the area of this stage of research is 2100 square kilometers). As a result, laser scanning revealed more than 60 thousand previously unknown buildings of the Maya Indians: houses, villages, city quarters, cult pyramids, defensive fortifications, embankments …
“We were hostages to our Western conceit, believing that highly developed civilizations could not thrive in the tropics. For us, the tropics have always been a place where civilizations die,”admits one of the project participants, Marcello Canuto, an archaeologist at Tulane University. - However, the data of the lidars convinces that the ancient Maya, who did not know the wheels and did not have draft animals, could literally move mountains.
Only now scientists were able to assess the ramification of the network of embankment roads. The Maya raised them above the surface of the earth to ensure free movement even during the rainy season. These were complex structures, they were part of a gigantic system of canals, dams and reservoirs. Such a transport and economic infrastructure connected almost all Mayan cities and was actively used for trade or military operations. Scientists were also impressed by the scale of construction of military installations - defensive ramparts, walls and fortresses.
This study is the first phase of a large-scale lidar study of the Mayan territories. In total, it is planned to explore 14,000 square kilometers of land on which the ancient civilization lived.
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YAROSLAV KOROBATOV