Their recent work with DNA analysis has revealed surprising tree and plant species that the Maya cultivated in fields, orchards and gardens. Her collaborator and colleague David Lentz, from the University of Cincinnati, is leading this research, working with Trinity Hamilton at the University of Minnesota. And suddenly we see the arteries of Maya transportation.' DNA will unlock new discoveriesĭNA analysis is another game-changing technology that offers exciting new opportunities in the field of archeology, Reese-Taylor says. And they connect different parts of cities, and they also go between cities. 'And now we can see them, and they're everywhere. 'You're thinking, 'Oh, it's just an undulation.' And yet, you're on a road,' Reese-Taylor says. Mapping from the ground in the jungle, heavy with vegetation, researchers could feel small bumps or rises in the earth but didn't realize what they were walking over. 'They transported everything along the waterways, because, of course, getting through the rainforest is really hard. 'I remember teaching, less than 10 years ago, saying really use the waterways - the waterways were the roads for the Maya,' Reese-Taylor says. Reese-Taylor wrote an article with colleagues about how the field of archeology was fundamentally changed forever. With lidar, she mapped 100 square kilometres - yielding unparalleled revelations - in a couple days. It had previously taken her research teams three years to cover roughly 12 square kilometres of rainforest while developing a topographic map. And it just completely changed our research program. 'It was just mind-boggling that we could get all of this data just from this one flyover,' Reese-Taylor says. (CBC/The Teenager and the Lost Maya City) Professor of archeology Kathryn Reese-Taylor has spent 30 years in the field studying the Maya.

She completed her own lidar survey five years later and remembers the shock she experienced. Kathryn Reese-Taylor, associate professor at the University of Calgary's department of anthropology and archaeology, first heard about lidar technology in 2009. Light detection and ranging technology, called lidar, has revealed undiscovered ceremonial ruins, the oldest and largest Maya structure found to date, the 'surprising complexity' of cities and their connections, and evidence of a sophisticated stone-working industry, not to mention nearly 500 new Mesoamerican sites, including those built by the Maya. Scientists have long studied their astronomical systems, architecture, calendars, hieroglyphic writing, farming practices, and extensive trade networks through dense jungle and swamps.īut in just the last 15 years, airborne lasers have led researchers to new discoveries that were once virtually invisible at ground level. The Maya civilization rose to prominence in the year 250 AD, although artifacts from these Indigenous peoples date back thousands of years earlier. (CBC/The Teenager and the Lost Maya City) The truth was there in the jungle, 'we just couldn't see' Gadoury used Google Earth to help come up with a theory that the Maya built their cities based on constellations. Archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli (L) and William Gadoury check GPS coordinates on a phone as they search for a missing Maya city in Mexico.

Ancient maya civilization map