Lasers in the Maya Jungle: Discovering Lost Cities in Mexico and Central America

Harvard FAS

Aerial born radar (LIDAR) technology has recently been deployed for discovering, mapping, dating, and assigning ethnic affiliations to major sites and cities heretofore unknown to scholars in the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. This seminar allows students to explore first-hand the revolutionary advances in the study of the origins of American civilizations at the Olmec ceremonial centers (dated 1300-600 B.C.), and view hundreds of major new towns and cities just discovered in the…