from the si-un-maya-se-desmaya-sigue-siendo-maya? dept.
'Game Changer': Maya Cities Unearthed In Guatemala Forest Using Lasers
By raining down laser pulses on some 770 square miles of dense forest in northern Guatemala, archaeologists have discovered 60,000 Maya structures that make up full sprawling cities.
And the new technology provides them with an unprecedented view into how the ancient civilization worked, revealing almost industrial agricultural infrastructure and new insights into Maya warfare.
"This is a game changer," says Thomas Garrison, an archaeologist at Ithaca College who is one of the leaders of the project. It changes "the base level at which we do Maya archaeology."
The data reveals that the area was three or four times more densely populated than originally thought. "I mean, we're talking about millions of people, conservatively," says Garrison. "Probably more than 10 million people."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday February 03 2018, @01:22PM (23 children)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fishybell on Saturday February 03 2018, @02:59PM (22 children)
I find it kind of amazing how quickly (in the hundreds of years range sure, but still quickly) evidence of these cities was swallowed up by nature.
Even very large structures [wikimedia.org] were almost completely enveloped by the time archeologists started investigating [wikipedia.org] the lost civilization in the early 1800's.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @03:30PM (20 children)
Modern brain shape (to say nothing of function) goes back at least 40k years, and anatomically modern bodies go back at least 300k years.
That's a long time! Our modern civilization could have developed 8-to-60 times in a row.
In only 150 years, the Titanic won't exist at the bottom of the ocean.
It is said that Atlantis sank into the sea, but that's unlikely; we know only that water levels have risen by hundreds of feet since the last ice age. It seems likely to me that Atlantis was a global civilization that lived on the coasts of the world (just as our modern civilization does), and thus got inundated in what became known throughout the world's myths as "The Great Flood"; Atlantis was a civilization of megalithic architecture and religious astronomy, and its cities have been sitting in the depths not for centuries, but for millennia, so that they have been virtually obliterated by time. All that remains are a few mysterious megalithic structures on dry land, many of which have been built atop by later peoples, and thus mis-attributed.
Where will our Civilization be in 10 thousand years?
Great system, guys.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:00PM (17 children)
What's the point of something "seeming likely" when you don't have evidence for it? Argument from ignorance is just another fallacy. As we see here, the jungle swallowed up these structures and hid them, but it didn't make them go away.
It may vanish as well, but there will be a vast amount of evidence of its passing. They'll still be digging up coke bottles millions of years from now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:14PM (16 children)
Others of us have consumed many resources on the subject, which bring forth very interesting questions; I invite you to look into the matter, if only for your own entertainment.
Atlantis need not have been a civilization of glass coke bottles to have been a civilization of global influence and organization.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:42PM (3 children)
So - Atlantis never discovered the coca plant? Or they didn't discover carbonated beverages? Obvious is obvious - any civilization is going to make and distribute beverages. Beer is the first stop for any civilization, immediately after fire and cooked foods. As soon as parents get tired of drunken toddlers falling into the fire, they invent soft drinks. Coca cola is inevitable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbEj1CIpuU [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @05:56PM
Yet, even our modern Civilization's engineers (with their modern tools) become confused by what the ancient people achieved with massive, precision-cut stones.
So, your argument doesn't really work, now does it? In some things we are more knowledgeable, while in others, they were more knowledgeable.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:47PM (1 child)
Yet we still don't know what was Soma [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 05 2018, @08:28AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhang [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 03 2018, @05:20PM (11 children)
It's just the smart bet. How does one get "megalithic architecture" without the hand tools to make that architecture? How does one have a global civilization without any sort of common equipment (not to mention absence of common languages and culture)? The answer is, one doesn't. We've been digging up human stuff dating back several million years and we have a pretty good idea what people were using at any given time. There's no sign of "Atlantis" or the technology it would need in order to exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @05:47PM (10 children)
There is ancient stonework that defies even our modern technology; we would not only struggle to lift many of these stones, but we find the exceptional craftsmanship difficult to reproduce even with computer-controlled diamond-based cutters.
We have no idea how they did it, or who did it.
This includes stonework [mis-]attributed to the ancient Egyptians, the Inca, the Romans, etc.
YouTube it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday February 03 2018, @07:18PM (6 children)
Sorry, don't believe that.
In other words, we can do it just fine, it just takes some work to first figure out how to do it. One doesn't recreate centuries of lost stone-working knowledge overnight. This is basic engineering 101. When you start with a hard problem, break it up into a set of small problems that you can solve more easily. Not being able to perfectly emulate Incan stone-dressing and other ancient feats right off the bat isn't a big deal. It took them time to develop those skills and it would take us some time as well.
Who else lives there? This leads to the biggest problem with the whole thing. No genetic commonalities between these regions. If you have a global civilization with that sort of exchange of knowledge, you have genetic exchange as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @08:54PM (1 child)
What an ass. "I don't believe that". Good for you. *pat* *pat* *pat*
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 04 2018, @04:17AM
I agree. Evidence is what matters here. That's what deflates these sorts of theories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:07PM (1 child)
For instance, Amazon groups are linked with indigenous Australians [smithsonianmag.com]
Perhaps you're also not aware that we don't even know exactly who the ancient Egyptians were; it has been a topic of debate. [wikipedia.org] Recent tests of mummies indicate connections with Middle Easterners and Europeans>/a>. [cnn.com]
Look at you speaking with such smug confidence, when you clearly know jack shit! Ha! I love it!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 04 2018, @03:46AM
The glaring thing missing here is a global genetic signal. If there was any sort of cultural, knowledge, or economic exchange at the global level, there should be gene groups manifesting at the global level. That's just how people operate. There is not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:32PM (1 child)
The OP is correct. There is a decree of precision that is hard to explain. For one, it's not just a matter of decoration; it's a matter of serious engineering, though even some of the decorative work (particularly in very hard stones) is difficult to accept on the basis of what archaeologists tell us about the tools that were available to these "primitive" peoples.
Also, work degrades with time; some of the best work is some of the very oldest. That suggests there is not a development in technology, but rather a legacy of technology.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 04 2018, @04:15AM
What is hard to explain about it? There's over a millennium of stone-working history in the region and the Incas were particularly good engineers with a lot of other accomplishments to their name (such as the terrace agriculture and extensive road and bridge systems).
Looking around, most of the best work was done during the reign of Pachacuti, in the mid to late 15th century with the European disaster befalling the empire a few decades after his death in the 1530s. So not seeing that claim.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @07:22PM (2 children)
Speaking of fallacies:
The obvious rebuttal is that our Atlantean AC is is something of a troll, and, I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens!
(Keep in mind that this is one of his "good" posts, replete with argumentum ad ignorantiam and the thinking of a disordered mind.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @08:59PM (1 child)
Well, I'm not sure about your appraisal of the OP, but your own comment doesn't fair well in my appraisal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @12:04AM
Now, let's analyze yours. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:35PM
Did you mention the Titanic? Do you realize that the swimming pool aboard that ship is still filled after all these years? Amazing technology, eh?
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Saturday February 03 2018, @07:49PM
Masters hording knowledge for competitive advantage and then dying before passing the secrets on (disease and conquest are killers) caused the same things to be discovered and lost over and over. The lack of sharing limited the scope of knowledge. The social structures that allowed sharing and preserving learning to flourish triggered the (in ecological terms) recent explosion of advancement that still seems to be accelerating. Everyone building on the best of the past is the trick that's made everything different.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday February 03 2018, @08:15PM
By 900 AD the decline in the low-lands was already complete. The population dispersed, draining away of the from these large cities to agricultural settlements. The Maya never did pave much of their cities, so mere absence of foot traffic makes for forest encroachment path. Their buildings were never waterproof, it is humid as hell, and warm year round.
A hundred years is all it takes, even in the US deep south (Cahaba - one time Capital of Alabama [onlyinyourstate.com]), to cover entire abandoned town sites.
In the central american environment, 600 years of abandonment is plenty of time to cover just about anything in jungle growth.
By the time the Spanish invaders arrived, (early 1500s), most Maya were living in agricultural villages, their great cities buried under a layer of rainforest green such that the Spanish never found these places.
Today, Its been over 1100 years since these places were occupied.
I don't find that all that amazing they are over grown.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:36PM
The Mayans knew all about them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:54PM
Apparently it is very useful to be able to look through the jungle canopy.
https://angkorlidar.org/history/ [angkorlidar.org]
(Score: 1) by Barenflimski on Sunday February 04 2018, @06:26PM
When you visit these places and talk to the local land owners, this is not a surprise or unknown. The farmers in these areas have been digging up mounds, pyramids, and roads as part of their daily life. When they find a hill, in almost every circumstance, there are stairs carved into them under the last few hundred years of top-soil. The local joke is that every time one digs a hole, its a new archeological dig, just don't tell the archeologists or they'll rope off the entire country.