Big, Bigger, Maya: The Builders of America

in science •  7 years ago  (edited)

If you ask people which civilization was the most advanced in building things 2000 years ago, 99% of the people would say the Romans.

But some archaeologists may say the Mayas.


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Using LiDAR (Light Radar) the archaeologists recently found a big network of houses, defensive structures, dams, pyramids and other buildings hidden in the jungle of Guatemala.

New estimates now put the number of people living there 2000 years ago at 10 to 15 million, up to 3 times more then former estimates. To feed so many people in the 2100 square kilometer “urban” area, the Maya used 95% of the land for extensive agriculture.
(If the newspaper hasn’t mix something up here, those numbers would mean 5000-6000 people per square kilometer, more dense then a lot of current-day million cities. Berlin for example has only 4000 people per km². Not completely impossible, but incredibly cramped with most of the area fields, not living space.)

They also build an “unbelievable” amount of defensive elements, which indicates that war was normal for them. The same goes for floods in the rain season. The long dams allowed the people to walk to other places and go on with trading, even if everything else was under water.

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Very interesting!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

The Mayan civilazation, and perhaps all civilization with pyramid structures facinates me. If you take what you just mentioned and try to comphrehend that, you will have realized that, there is more to our past then what we've been told by mainstream archeology.

I didn't know there was non mainstream archaeology.

It doesn't hurt to do your own research. 😊

So in non-mainstream archaeology you don't go into the pyramids to look at them, but in a cave 5km away? :D

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Oh, I see. I was wrong, let's just pretend everything is what the mainstream archeologist say it is, who some are paid to hide artifacts, that don't conform to a specific narative, for fear of losing reputation among peers and eventually losing their source of income to sustain their livelyhoods. 😁