Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

livescience.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–59 of 59 posts

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#51

Post by JoeAltmaier »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #25
kristopolous wrote: post #15

It's a shame to think of all the ancient literature and rich history we've lost from these civilizations. I'm sure they had their Homers and Platos.

Well, maybe. But people still speak Mayan today and they've retained the legends and stories which are depicted on the iconography and actually written in the script, that's how we were able to decipher and read it. I don't mean to sound like a cultural darwinist, but Athens and the library of Alexandria were razed to the ground and yet we still have Plato today because everybody who got their hands on his writings d…

Didn't the Maya civilization suffer from systematic erasure? Monks collected their books and had bonfires, called them devil-worshippers and threatened them to abandon their scripts and legends.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#52

Post by JoeAltmaier »

RaSoJo wrote: post #19

Let us bid adieu to that chunk of rain forest. First them archeologists will go scrounging, followed closely by the tourists. Do these 'historic' finds serve any purpose for our future generations? Or would those trees have served our children better?

When those civilizations were active, there were few trees. It's wrong to return that part of the world to a previous state?

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#53

Post by arunix »

antiterra wrote: post #50

Check out Lost Cities with Albert Lin if you want to see some of this stuff being done and previous discoveries. It feels a little docu-dramatized but neat nonetheless.

Also two episodes of Expedition Unknown:

https://expeditionunknown.fandom.com/wiki/Pyramids_of_Legend...

https://expeditionunknown.fandom.com/wiki/Lost_City_of_El_Mi...

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#54

Post by kcartlidge »

speed_spread wrote: post #43
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #4

If I was a billionaire, I’d commission a lidar survey of the entire planet. The amount of stuff that seems to be hidden beneath forest and snow and mud and ocean is absurd.

If you were to discover an alien spaceship laying under the ice in Antartica, for god's sake don't tell anyone and _don't dig it out_.

> If you were to discover an alien spaceship laying under the ice in Antartica

A fair few things this could reference, but I'll use it as an opportunity to recommend reading the least likely option which is the book Ice Station by Matthew Reilly.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#55

Post by triyambakam »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #7
triyambakam wrote: post #3

This is exciting as someone who recently discovered Graham Hancock.

Try discovering Graeber and Wengrow instead for something more realistic and just as awe inducing

Graeber and Wengrow is interesting, but it's equally fantastical to Hancock's work; or equally realistic, if you prefer.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#56

Post by _8j50 »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #37
_8j50 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perhaps even from civilizations far larger, have simply disappeared, like the Egyptian materials for over a thousand years. What you're missing is a history of conquest. Greece and Rome had a very intertwined cultural exchange. It wasn't just alexander that conquered land all over (all the way to india) and I am sure you know of how rome invaded it's way to the point they needed two emperors. Civilizationd in ameri…

>American culture and literature for example, I am sure will last many centuries in other cultures. Who can say? You're right that Greece and Rome had very intertwined cultural exchange, but that was only after Greece had been conquered; again, that doesn't explain why Platonic philosophy was so influential outside of Greece and Rome. And yes, the American civilizations didn't invade people from other parts of the wo…

> I'm sure if the Mayan civilization never collapsed they would be a colonizing force not unlike the Europeans. Appropriating land and labor for use in capital exploitation is not a distinctly European phenomenon.

I fully agree with that and even commented as much recently. My point was not "invading bad" but the types of invasions that happened in Europe historically and subsequent developments and technology sharing laid the ground work for an efficient cultural exchange. There was a well functioning regional economy in mediterrenean rim countries for many centuries. It would be even more shocking if greek and roman authors were unknown to the rest of the regions they traded with.

A good comparison is east asia. Chinese cultural influence and literature from antiquity and before can still be seen in korea, japan, vietnam,etc... before the 20th century the works of pluto or aristotle I'm sure were mostly unknown in asia (even in colonies)and africa. Even in the americas, it is either colonizers who brought that cultural literature or natives that had to be exposed to the material against their will.

The prevalnce of cultural artifacts like literature is caused by military victory and conquest.

In modern timed for example, certain tv shows or movies from the US are universally (almost) known.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#57

Post by wahnfrieden »

triyambakam wrote: post #55
wahnfrieden wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try discovering Graeber and Wengrow instead for something more realistic and just as awe inducing

Graeber and Wengrow is interesting, but it's equally fantastical to Hancock's work; or equally realistic, if you prefer.

it is speculative but the difference is that it speculates based on credible research based evidence. which is why I say "more"

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#58

Post by musicale »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #51
DiscourseFan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe. But people still speak Mayan today and they've retained the legends and stories which are depicted on the iconography and actually written in the script, that's how we were able to decipher and read it. I don't mean to sound like a cultural darwinist, but Athens and the library of Alexandria were razed to the ground and yet we still have Plato today because everybody who got their hands on his writings d…

Didn't the Maya civilization suffer from systematic erasure? Monks collected their books and had bonfires, called them devil-worshippers and threatened them to abandon their scripts and legends.

Unfortunately, yes.

The few surviving ones are amazing though. I always hope that someday a hidden cache of preserved codices that somehow escaped destruction will be discovered, but it seems unlikely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#59

Post by mola »

lowkey wrote: post #17
SapporoChris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Smearing him as a promoter of pseudo-scientific theories without articulating your rationale is frankly weak-sauce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Pseudoarchaeolo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Orion_correlati... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#The_Message_of_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Atlantis_Reborn... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#An…

The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis [1], which has a growing body of evidence to support it, if true, would cause a great deal of embarrassment to mainstream archeologists. Is it possible that this is the reason they seek to smear Graham Hancock as a pseudo-archeologist? Notably, Hancock isn’t the only one to inquire about the Orion’s Belt and the fact that the pyramids in Egypt follow an identical orientation. Dr. C…

Let's say we have chatgpt spew out theory after theory that challenge "mainstream archeology". Should we entertain these just because it's not mainstream? Weird logic.
Post reply on HN