Scientists Have Discovered Almost 1,000 Long-Hidden Maya Settlements in Guatemala

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When it comes to discovering lost civilizations, it's a pretty big find: close to 1,000 previously hidden Maya settlements have been found in northern Guatemala thanks to LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) laser scanning from the air.

The area that these settlements cover is vast: the buildings and structures spotted by researchers stretch across some 650 square miles of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin and its immediate surroundings. These places would have been occupied around 1,000 BCE to 250 BCE.

Researchers from institutions in the US, Guatemala, and France note that the settlements that they've come across seem to have been quite densely packed, offering further evidence of how these early Mesoamerican places were populated.There's a lot in the new findings: buildings including homes, sports courts, and religious, ceremonial, and civic centers, as well as extensive networks of causeways and canals linking many of them together.

"Many of these settlements demonstrate a political/social/geographical relationship with other nearby settlements, which has resulted in the consolidation into at least 417 ancient cities, towns, and villages with identifiable site boundaries," write the researchers in theirThe connections observed between the points of habitation suggest that this was all part of a kingdom-like state, in the sense that common ideologies and politics would probably have been shared across a lot of the...

According to the researchers, numerous skills would've been required to build these structures: lime producers, mortar and quarry specialists, lithic technicians, architects, and legal enforcement and religious officials would all have been involved. "The magnitude of the labor in the construction of massive platforms, palaces, dams, causeways, and pyramids dating to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods throughout the MCKB suggests a power to organize thousands of workers and specialists,"There's also evidence of smart drainage and water collection systems here, enabling an easier movement of water between settlements in times of drought or flood – something that the Maya people areThe light-based aerial scanning system...

 

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thank you. What made them disappear? Usually civilizations end due to disease or water (climate change) & therefore food shortage. Not war. Otherwise the victors would have taken it over. Will DC look like this one day?

👀

azlancat Mayans started gitmo

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