Cool read of the day. It's all about Caracol Archaeological Reserve, and the Drs. Chase, and LIDAR. Worth a read.
Research and publish the best content.
Get Started for FREE
Sign up with Facebook Sign up with X
I don't have a Facebook or a X account
Already have an account: Login
Cayo Scoop! The Ecology of Cayo Culture
235.6K views |
+8 today
All the positive news and events from Cayo, with a special focus on culture, past, present, and future.
Curated by
Best of Cayo
 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
The National Institute of Culture and History is celebrating it's 10 year anniversary, and they put together a video for the occasion. It covers a lot of what they've done over the past decade, and is definitely worth a watch. They talk about Caracol, and how they used LIDAR to find out that it was even bigger than previously thought, around 8 times bigger. If you want to learn more about NICH, you will. 
|
Scoop.it!
A 'Citadel' that measures around a kilometer in length has been discovered at El Pilar. They used LiDAR a few years ago on the site, which is located just north of Bullet Tree, and found the unique complex. There are many hypothesis as to what its purpose was. It will be studied this year. "LiDAR helped to produce a remarkable map of El Pilar, revealing unexposed Maya architectural and other human-made features that, although still hidden from the naked eye, fit an often-seen pattern. This new set of structures, however, was something new. Dubbed the 'Citadel' because of its location perched atop a ridge with the appearance of fortifications, it contains concentric terracing and four ‘temples’, each about three to four meters high. Unlike the other structure complexes, it seems by placement to have been isolated from the rest of greater El Pilar."
Scoop.it!
LiDAR is interesting, but it's unfortunate that it tells us this.
"A NASA funded expedition using airborne lasers to study ancient Mayan ruins has also documented widespread illegal deforestation in the Caracol Archaeological Reserve. The lasers found that forest disturbance was actually 58 percent greater than recent satellite surveys showed, according new study in mongabay.com's open access journal Tropical Conservation Society (TCS). Such deforestation not only imperils biodiversity, carbon storage, and migration routes for Central American species, but could also lead to plundering of the Maya site of Caracol.
The NASA research employed a system known as LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) to discover unfound archeological sites in the jungle, once home to one of the Maya's greatest cities. But the expedition also provided greater insight into deforestation in the 10,340-hectare Caracol Archaeological Reserve, due to the sensitivity of the lasers even over satellite imagery. The new data shows that in all 11 percent of the reserve has been disturbed by illegal deforestation."
Annah Detwiler's curator insight,
November 4, 2014 10:16 AM
This is just sickening, its on a reserve! it's suppose to be a safe haven for the indigenous population and the animals that live there. How many lives have these people killed? more than you think. |
