region:northern guatemala

Lasers Reveal 60,000 Ancient Maya Structures in Guatemala - HISTORY
▻https://www.history.com/news/ancient-maya-structures-guatemala-lasers

https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU4NzcwMDYyMDkyNjc0NzIx/mayan_structures_promo.jpg

The largest-ever survey of a region from the Maya civilization has located over 60,000 previously unknown structures in northern Guatemala. The survey, conducted with the help of lasers, challenges long-held assumptions that this area was poorly connected and sparsely populated.

The structures researchers identified include farms, houses and defensive fortifications, as well as 60 miles of causeways, roads and canals connecting large cities across the civilization’s central lowlands. Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who uses satellite technology, had this reaction on Twitter when preliminary images became public: “This is HOLY [expletive] territory.” (Parcak was not involved with this study).

The ancient Maya civilization stretched from southern Mexico down to Guatemala and Belize, flourishing between 1000 B.C. and 1500 A.D. The recent study focused on 830 square miles of the #Maya Biosphere Reserve in Petén, #Guatemala. Scientists used a laser technology called #lidar, or light detection and ranging, to penetrate the thick tree canopies in the area and discover archaeological remains beneath them.

https://www.history.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Ch_2000%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_2000/MTU4NzcyMDc4MDQyOTQ5MzM2/mayan-structure-screenshot-video.png

#archéologie

Ecocide and modern slavery in the land of the Maya: the impact of oil palm cultivation in Guatemala - Equal Times
▻https://www.equaltimes.org/ecocide-and-modern-slavery-in-the?lang=en

It looks clean and exuberantly beautiful, but the lake is contaminated. And the lives of 700 people depend on this lake, all residents of the Manos Unidas (United Hands) Cooperative, a community that is part of the municipality of Sayaxché, in the Petén department, northern Guatemala.

Manos Unidas has become the last frontier of resistance to the advance of palm oil production in the region, as the only community that has hung on to its land; and that, say its residents, is because the lands are common property.

#Guatemala #industrie_palmiste #esclavage_moderne