Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Monday 5 February 2018

Scientists find massive Mayan society under Guatemala jungle

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — and structures, both hiding
Researchers using a high- and preserving them.
tech aerial mapping tech- “In this the jungle, which
nique have found tens of has hindered us in our dis-
thousands of previously un- covery efforts for so long,
detected Mayan houses, has actually worked as this
buildings, defense works great preservative tool of
and pyramids in the dense the impact the culture had
jungle of Guatemala’s across the landscape,” not-
Peten region, suggesting ed Garrison, who worked
that millions more people on the project and spe-
lived there than previously cializes in the city of El Zotz,
thought. near Tikal.
The discoveries, which in- LiDAR revealed a previ-
cluded industrial-sized agri- ously undetected structure
cultural fields and irrigation between the two sites that
canals, were announced Garrison says “can’t be
Thursday by an alliance of called anything other than
U.S., European and Gua- a Maya fortress.”
temalan archaeologists “It’s this hill-top citadel that
working with Guatemala’s has these ditch and ram-
Mayan Heritage and Na- This digital 3D image provided by Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation, PACUNAM, part systems ... when I went
ture Foundation. shows a depiction of the Mayan archaeological site at Tikal in Guatemala created using LiDAR there, one of these things in
The study estimates that aerial mapping technology. nine meters tall,” he noted.
roughly 10 million people Associated Press In a way, the structures
may have lived within the cient Mayas partly drained the LiDAR data to look for Garrison noted that unlike were hiding in plain sight.
Maya Lowlands, meaning swampy areas that haven’t one of the roads revealed. some other ancient cul- “As soon as we saw this
that kind of massive food been considered worth “I found it, but if I had not tures, whose fields, roads we all felt a little sheepish,”
production might have farming since. had the LiDAR and known and outbuildings have said Canuto said of the Li-
been needed. And the extensive defen- that that’s what it was, I been destroyed by subse- DAR images, “because
“That is two to three times sive fences, ditch-and- would have walked right quent generations of farm- these were things that we
more (inhabitants) than rampart systems and irriga- over it, because of how ing, the jungle grew over had been walking over all
people were saying there tion canals suggest a highly dense the jungle is.” abandoned Maya fields the time.”q
were,” said Marcello A. Ca- organized workforce.
nuto, a professor of Anthro- “There’s state involve-
pology at Tulane University. ment here, because we Lawsuits say Mexican gray
Researchers used a map- see large canals being
ping technique called Li- dug that are re-directing
DAR, which stands for Light natural water flows,” said wolf recovery plan is flawed
Detection And Ranging. It Thomas Garrison, Assistant
bounces pulsed laser light Professor of Anthropology By SUSAN MONTOYA BRY-
off the ground, revealing at Ithaca College in New AN
contours hidden by dense York. Associated Press
foliage. The 810 square miles (2,100 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)
The images revealed that square kilometers) of map- — U.S. wildlife managers
the Mayans altered the ping done vastly expands failed to adopt a recovery
landscape in a much the area that was intensive- plan for the endangered
broader way than previ- ly occupied by the Maya, Mexican gray wolf that
ously thought; in some ar- whose culture flourished would protect against il-
eas, 95 percent of avail- between roughly 1,000 BC legal killings and the con-
able land was cultivated. and 900 AD. Their descen- sequences of inbreeding,
“Their agriculture is much dants still live in the region. according to lawsuits filed
more intensive and there- The mapping detected Tuesday by environmental-
fore sustainable than we about 60,000 individual ists.
thought, and they were structures, including four Two coalitions of environ-
cultivating every inch of major Mayan ceremonial mental groups filed sepa- Associated Press
the land,” said Francisco centers with plazas and rate complaints in federal ing genetic threats. are made.”
Estrada-Belli, a Research pyramids. court in Arizona, marking “Mexican wolves urgently “This recovery plan was de-
Assistant Professor at Tulane Garrison said that this year the latest challenges in a need more room to roam, signed by politicians and
University, noting the an- he went to the field with decades-long battle over protection from killing and anti-wolf states, not by in-
efforts to re-establish the more releases of wolves dependent biologists,” he
predator in its historic range into the wild to improve ge- said.
in the American Southwest netic diversity, but the Mex- Federal officials did not im-
and northern Mexico. ican wolf recovery plan mediately respond Tues-
The lawsuits alleges the provides none of these day to a message seeking
plan adopted by the U.S. things,” said Earthjustice comment about the law-
Fish and Wildlife Service attorney Elizabeth Forsyth, suit but have previously
set inadequate population who is representing the defended the plan, which
goals for the wolves, cut off groups. was adopted in Novem-
access to vital habitat in “The wolves will face an ber after decades of legal
other parts of the West and ongoing threat to their sur- wrangling and political
failed to respond to mount- vival unless major changes battles.q