Sprawling Maya network discovered under Guatemala jungle - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42916261
Researchers have found more than 60,000 hidden #Maya ruins in #Guatemala in a major archaeological breakthrough.
#Laser technology [Lidar] was used to survey digitally beneath the forest canopy, revealing houses, palaces, elevated highways, and defensive fortifications.
The landscape, near already-known Maya cities, is thought to have been home to millions more people than other research had previously suggested.
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The group of scholars who worked on this project used Lidar to digitally remove the dense tree canopy to create a #3D map of what is really under the surface of the now-uninhabited Guatemalan rainforest.
“Lidar is revolutionising archaeology the way the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionised astronomy,” Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Tulane University archaeologist, told National Geographic. “We’ll need 100 years to go through all [the data] and really understand what we’re seeing.”