{"id":12750,"date":"2010-05-11T09:55:20","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T13:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750//?p=12750"},"modified":"2019-06-10T09:44:50","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T13:44:50","slug":"mapping-ancient-civilization-in-a-matter-of-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750//mapping-ancient-civilization-in-a-matter-of-days/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750//","title":{"rendered":"Mapping Ancient Civilization, in a Matter of Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even the new remote-sensing technologies, so effective in recent decades at surveying other archaeological sites, were no help. Imaging radar and multispectral surveys by air and from space could not /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/u201csee/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/u201d through the trees./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/n

Then, in the dry spring season a year ago, the husband-and-wife team of Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase tried a new approach using airborne laser signals that penetrate the jungle cover and are reflected from the ground below. They yielded 3-D images of the site of ancient Caracol, in Belize, one of the great cities of the Maya lowlands./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/n

In only four days, a twin-engine aircraft equipped with an advanced version of lidar (light detection and ranging) flew back and forth over the jungle and collected data surpassing the results of two and a half decades of on-the-ground mapping, the archaeologists said. After three weeks of laboratory processing, the almost 10 hours of laser measurements showed topographic detail over an area of 80 square miles, notably settlement patterns of grand architecture and modest house mounds, roadways and agricultural terraces./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/u201cWe were blown away,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/u201d Dr. Diane Chase said recently, recalling their first examination of the images. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/u201cWe believe that lidar will help transform Maya archaeology much in the same way that radiocarbon dating did in the 1950s and interpretations of Maya hieroglyphs did in the 1980s and /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/u201990s./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/n

The Chases, who are professors of anthropology at the 海角直播 in Orlando, had determined from earlier surveys that Caracol extended over a wide area in its heyday, between A.D. 550 and 900. From a ceremonial center of palaces and broad plazas, it stretched out to industrial zones and poor neighborhoods and beyond to suburbs of substantial houses, markets and terraced fields and reservoirs./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/12750/n