With funding from the National Geographic Society and European Research council, archaeologist Damian Evans and his colleagues conducted broad LiDAR surveys of Angkor in 2012 and 2015. The team's mapping rig consisted of a Leica ALS70 HP LiDAR instrument mounted in a pod attached to the right skid of a Eurocopter AS350 B2 helicopter alongside a 60 megapixel Leica RCD30 camera. It was as if an invisible city suddenly appeared where only overgrowth and farmland existed before. For the first time in centuries, people could discern Angkor's original urban grid. And what they saw changed our understanding of global history.
Archaeological researcher Piphal Heng, who studies Cambodian settlement history, told Ars that the LiDAR maps peeled back the forest canopy to reveal meticulous grids of highways and low-density neighborhoods of thousands of houses and pools of water. There was "a complex urban grid system that extended outside the walls of Angkor Thom and other large temple complexes such as Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and Ta Prohm," he said. With the new data, scientists had solid evidence that the city of Angkor sprawled over an area of at least 40 to 50 square km. It was home to almost a million people. The scattered, moated complexes like Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were merely the most enduring features of what we now know was the biggest city on Earth during the 12th and 13th centuries.
Very interesting article. I recomend that you read the whole thing.
As an aside, if Lessans and Peacegirl were right about about how light and vision work, this discovery could not have been made.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
Hundreds of years ago, an advanced, seafaring civilization called Rapa Nui built more than 800 monuments that were so massive and ambiguous that they remain a mystery to this day. The Easter Island statues, or moai, are enormous stone figures placed along the coastline as if surveying the island's interior lands. One of archaeology's greatest mysteries is what happened to the Rapa Nui of Easter Island.
Now, new evidence from archaeological investigations has overturned a popular myth about the demise of the Rapa Nui civilization on the island. For centuries, observers believed that the Rapa Nui suffered a catastrophic population crash. But there is no scientific evidence to support this idea, say a group of researchers in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity. That story about environmental collapse and warfare you read about in Jared Diamond's bestseller Collapse? Totally wrong.
Another great article from arstechnica.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
The scattered, moated complexes like Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were merely the most enduring features of what we now know was the biggest city on Earth during the 12th and 13th centuries.
And what can you tell us about Angkor Kuk? A strange omission. What have you got to hide?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Angakuk
As an aside, if Lessans and Peacegirl were right about about how light and vision work, this discovery could not have been made.
What I have to hide they ain't going to find with no Lidar.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
It is sometimes said that most Americans live in “the United States of Amnesia.” Less widely recognized is how many American policy makers live there too.
Well, of course. No historian wants to be out of a job. They want more history! Not a Francis Fukuyama situation. And while a Trump candidacy is generating some history - even the ones who are against Trump are getting something out it - how much more would a Trump presidency?
Also, one of the history dudes quoted introduced me to the word gravamen and the phrase "that was not at all the gravamen of my comments" which I think could be of great use in interwebs discussions.
Researchers from the Bodleian Library in Oxford, with the help of some universities in the Netherlands, have used a new technique to reveal these details in a rare Mexican codex dating from before the Americas were colonized by Europeans.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
Re: History geekodrome
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