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Lost Maya Ruins Uncovered - From Space
Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006 (CST) by Thoth
 Remains of the ancient Maya culture, mysteriously destroyed at the height of its reign in the ninth century, have been hidden in the rainforests of Central America for more than 1,000 years. Now, NASA and university scientists are using space- and aircraft-based "remote-sensing" technology to uncover those ruins, using the chemical signature of the civilization's ancient building materials.
NASA archaeologist Tom Sever and scientist Dan Irwin, both from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., are teaming with William Saturno, an archaeologist at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, to locate the ruins of the ancient culture.
"From the air, everything but the tops of very few surviving pyramids are hidden by the tree canopy," said Sever, widely recognized for two decades as a pioneer in the use of aerospace remote-sensing for archaeology.
"On the
ground, the 60- to 100-foot trees and dense undergrowth can obscure
objects as close as 10 feet away. Explorers can stumble right through
an ancient city that once housed thousands -- and never even realize
it."
Sever has explored the
capacity of remote sensing, the science of collecting information about
the Earth's surface using aerial or space-based photography, to serve
archaeology. He and Irwin provided Saturno with high-resolution
commercial satellite images of the rainforest, and collected data from
NASA's Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar, an instrument flown aboard a
high-altitude weather plane, capable of penetrating clouds, snow and
forest canopies.
These resulting Earth
observations have helped the team survey an uncharted region around San
Bartolo, Guatemala. They discovered a correlation between the color and
reflectivity of the vegetation seen in the images -- their "signature,"
which is captured by instruments measuring light in the visible and
near-infrared spectrums -- and the location of known archaeological
sites.
In 2004, the team
ground-tested the data. Hiking deep into the jungle to locations guided
by the satellite images, they uncovered a series of Maya settlements
exactly where the technology had predicted they would be found.
Integrating cutting-edge remote sensing technology as a vital research
tool enabled the scientists to expand their study of the jungle.
The cause of the floral
discoloration discerned in the imagery quickly became clear to the
team. The Maya built their cities and towns with excavated limestone
and lime plasters. As these structures crumbled, the lack of moisture
and nutritional elements inside the ruins kept some plant species at
bay, while others were discolored or killed off altogether as
disintegrating plaster changed the chemical content of the soil around
each structure.
"Over the centuries, the
changes became dramatic," Saturno said. "This pattern of small details,
impossible to see from the forest floor or low-altitude planes, turned
out to be a virtual roadmap to ancient Maya sites when seen from space."
Under a NASA Space Act
Agreement with the University of New Hampshire, the science team will
visit Guatemala annually through 2009, with the support of the
Guatemalan Institute of Anthropology and History and the Department of
Pre-Hispanic Monuments. The team will verify their research and
continue refining their remote sensing tools to more easily lead
explorers to other ancient ruins and conduct Earth science research in
the region.
"Studies such as these do
more than fulfill our curiosity about the past," Sever said. "They help
us prepare for our own future."
Scientists believe the Maya
fell prey to a number of cataclysmic environmental problems, including
deforestation and drought, that led to their downfall, Irwin said. "The
world continues to battle the devastating effects of drought today,
from the arid plains of Africa to the southern United States," he said.
"The more we know about the plight of the Maya, the better our chances
of avoiding something similar."
Another aspect of the
research involved using climate models to determine the effects of
Maya-driven deforestation on ancient Mesoamerican climate. The goal of
this effort was to determine whether deforestation can lead to droughts
and if the activities of the ancient Maya drove the environmental
changes that undermined their civilization.
Extending benefits of
remote-sensing technologies is part of NASA's Earth-Sun System
Division. NASA is conducting a long-term research effort to learn how
natural and human-induced changes affect the global environment, and to
provide critical benefits to society today.
Sever and Irwin conduct
research at the National Space Science and Technology Center in
Huntsville, a joint science venture between NASA's Marshall Center,
Alabama universities, industry and federal agencies. For more
information about its work, visit: http://www.nsstc.org/
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