![]() In the early 2000s, LiDAR technology made its way into ancient Maya research projects. Each step carries so few rocks that residents must have intentionally removed material from the Earth, and the design of each step allowed water to flow from one to the next. It seemed to be the only way to feed a relatively packed metropolis.įurther excavations showed that terraces, or giant shallow steps, carved into hillsides contain layers of modified soil. In the 1970s, attempts to map Tikal, a major Maya city in Guatemala, showed that it was so densely populated that the inhabitants must have relied on a kind of agriculture that farmed the same plots of land repeatedly. Dense jungle seemed somewhat impossible to transform into agricultural fields for those who were used to seeing flat plains.Īs research continued over the years, archaeologists began to reconsider their assumptions. Additionally, Western ideas about agriculture influenced how researchers thought residents could put land to use. That attitude - and search - bled into the first archaeological explorations. Europeans also first arrived in Central America on a quest for wealth. ![]() “Early gentlemen scholars were interested in the elite because they were elite,” says Adrian Chase, an archaeologist at Arizona State University. The work was a hobby conducted and funded by wealthy Europeans. This was in part because the investigators themselves were rich. When early archaeologists first examined ancient Maya remains, they fixated on wealth and power, such as temples, graves and their extravagant contents. And the more researchers learn, the more the forged landscapes shine as marvels of ancient Maya culture. In a stretch of land hit with alternating hurricanes and droughts, Maya ancestors scooped out reservoirs and dug drainage systems capable of holding and transporting water. Research and excavations have gradually shown that ancient civilizations in what is now Mexico, Guatemala and Belize modified landscapes to ensure regional water cycles worked for farmers and fed thriving cities. ![]() "No one had been asking the question, 'well, how did these people survive in this biologically stressful environment?'"īut over time, a decidedly mundane portion of ancient Maya life has entered the spotlight: water management. "Unfortunately, there's this almost 200 year legacy of people focused on burial chambers and temples and hieroglyphics," says Kenneth Tankersley, an archaeological geologist at the University of Cincinnati. During the two centuries Western archaeologists have excavated and investigated ancient Maya sites, comparatively little time has been spent understanding the structures that kept cities functioning for centuries.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |