500 Mesoamerican monuments revealed by new mapping technology

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Scientists have uncovered nearly 500 Mesoamerican monuments in southern Mexico using an airborne laser mapping technology called lidar. Dating as far back as 3000 years ago, the structures—still buried beneath vegetation—include huge artificial plateaus that may have been used for ceremonial gatherings and other religious events.

“The sheer number of sites they found is staggering,” says Thomas Garrison, an archeologist at the University of Texas, Austin, who was not involved in the work. “The study is going to be the inspiration for hopefully decades of research at these different settlements.”

The team found four additional layout types, representing either different cultural influences or different points in time. “It’s amazing to have missed so many of these complexes”. Some of them are “so massive that they’re hiding in plain sight.”

These new regionwide data raise some tantalizing questions. The standardized ceremonial center layouts indicate this kind of architecture was formalized earlier than researchers thought. Inomata notes that there is scant evidence for permanent residences prior to about 500 B.C.E.

The study is “remarkable and innovative,” Murtha says. “It’s a foundational approach that will set off a whole bunch of work.”

Source - https://www.science.org/content/article/nearly-500-mesoamerican-monuments-revealed-laser-mapping-many-first-time

[Plastic Flower 5,589]

It's located in my state My teacher used to talk about this type of stuff and it's finally been discovered. 

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7 hours ago, Plastic Flower said:

It's located in my state My teacher used to talk about this type of stuff and it's finally been discovered. 

Before things are discovered by scientists, locals/ people of place may usually know or have an intuition on where funeral sites, monuments, places of value etc are located.

For instance, in Eastern Europe kurgans (picture) were interminentelly used as funeral places once a few thousands years (burials were so strechted over such a long period of time, yet they happened in the same exact geographical location so the idea of a coincidence is an unlikely explanation). Lots of Languagues came and went in this part of thr world, yet to this day some of the names imply something funeral-related. So, is safe to say knowledge just carries on.