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marketrent OP t1_j1b01d7 wrote

Reply to comment by Lord0fHats in Discovery of 1,000 previously unknown Maya settlements challenges the old notion of sparse early human occupation in northern Guatemala (ca. 1000 B.C.–A.D. 150) by marketrent

>Lord0fHats

>This article is wrong in acting like this is new. Lidar has been getting used in this region for a decade.

The article is describing the discovery of settlements and the scope of its LiDAR survey. Where does it state that LiDAR is new?

What is stated, in the article:

>Scientists led by Richard Hansen, an archaeologist at Idaho State University and the director of the Mirador Basin Project, offer “an introduction to one of the largest, contiguous, regional LiDAR studies published to date in the Maya Lowlands,” a region that covers parts of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, according to the study.

ETA:

>Lord0fHats

>You picked the title of the thread.

>Also the article uses the words 'lost' and 'discovered.'

Are your comments intended to create off-topic discussion based on select words, instead of discussing the linked article itself?

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Lord0fHats t1_j1b3s64 wrote

You picked the title of the thread.

Also the article uses the words 'lost' and 'discovered.' Hansen's been working that region for 20 years. He already knew they were there.

I first heard about them in a Great Courses lecture series from 2014 which has an entire chapter dedicated to El Mirador and the region around it (edit: plugging because it's really great, Barnhart honestly makes learning fun). This technology has even been used the exact same way in the exact same region before. In 2020. In 2019. In 2018. Barnhart's lecture on El Mirado talks about it (again, 2014). The book 1491 (published 2005) talks about these discoveries.

It's not an accusation. It's common for articles, and the academics who want them published, to engage in some bluster about what they've 'found.' People get more excited about 'new discoveries' than they do about 'we knew this was here 100 years ago but we never shot radar at it!'

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