Forgotten Mayan city: Is it just an old cornfield? | Hacker News Reader

Forgotten Mayan city: Is it just an old cornfield?

independent.co.uk

33 pointsbenbreen19 comments

How deep in the jungle was this supposed to be? Why would there be a old corn field in the middle of the jungle?

Much of what is now a jungle in South America is recent, i.e. a product of the last 500-1500 years. Or rather, we know that many jungled areas were once open. Hence why we are still discovering entire settlements buried deep in jungle.

(A) Guatemala is in Central America, not South America. Central America being part of North America. In countless ways, Mexico and Central America are far more connected to the US than to South America.

(B) a lot of these cities discovered in the jungle is not because it was naturally not jungle before. Instead, it was jungle that the Maya deforested and cultivated the land. The amount of deforestation by the ancient Maya was similar (though smaller scale) to that of the Europeans.

This point in particular is critical in breaking the myth of the Maya as a super environmental people on harmony with nature. It makes them an overly simplistic "native people". The reality is they might have caused their own demise through environmental destruction (or at least the classical cities, the post classical are a different story)

> Instead, it was jungle that the Maya deforested and cultivated the land.

I am immensely skeptical. Do you have sources for this?

First possibly-reliable source I found (I had read about this before, but don't remember where)

Some text: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Maya/

and some maps speculating about the extend and climate change: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77060

We know that native Indians built huge densely populated cities, cleared forests, shaped nature to suite their needs and engaged in bloody wars all the time. They created Maze through selective breeding of previous crops.

My money is on the fact that Mayans were pretty similar.

Also, I think it is incorrect to think that people who burn down forests aren't in harmony with nature. You can use nature and be in harmony with it at the same time. That is what I learned from ancient Hindu beliefs.

Evidence: https://www.amazon.com/1491-Second-Revelations-Americas-Colu...

There are way more lucrative crops to have in the middle of the jungle.

In Guatemala, corn fields are everywhere. For example, consider Tikal, it is in the heart of the humid jungle yet used to be a Mayan city 1000 years ago with a population of 100-200k people in the near vicinity (population density estimates put it in the same category as LA county). They cleared vast swaths of the jungle to cultivate corn.

Today you see a similar pattern among the poor, indigenous Guatemalans, though on smaller scales. As I drive through the country, I'm always astounded at how many corn fields are in the middle of a forest or on a seemingly inaccessible hillside. The majority of these rural poor are still cultivating corn by hand using techniques inherited from their ancestors. As corn was domesticated there, they have found ways to cultivate it that are very different from the industrial farms on flatland in Iowa.

Corn here being maize, not what we Brits call corn (a crop like wheat or barley) presumably.

If tourist guides in the Yucatan are anything to go by there basically was little to no jungle back in the Mayan days - it had been chopped down pretty much in full to make room for cities and corn fields.

Critics say the area is a milpa. From Wikipedia:

>The word is also used for a small field, especially in Mexico or Central America, that is cleared from the jungle, cropped for a few seasons, and then abandoned for a fresh clearing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milpa

How expensive could it be to go look in person?

It's in the middle of a huge forest. It would be very difficult to travel there.

This is 114 miles from Ciudad del Carmen, out of which 4 helicopter charter companies fly. Commercial helicopters have a range of up to around 330 miles. All you'd need is about $2000 and a 100ft rope.

EDIT: Flores is even closer, at 72 miles.

You are imagining that you get under the canopy and magically a city in ruins appears.

Instead, it is so entirely overgrown with a thousand years of vegetation, that it is difficult to spot the difference between a hill and a temple.

I was in tikal recently (drove from Flores, as you pointed out), and it was astounding to compare the parts they have excavated and restored to the rest. You would see hundreds of small hills and know that under each is an undiscovered building! Had it not been for the escavated parts, I wouldn't have even realized the hills were anything else.

As a parallel, under parts of Guatemala city (far to the south in the highlands) there are the remains of a Mayan city from pre-classical to early classical. The center of which is under a high end shopping mall. There are similar hills there covered in grass in a nice lark. I have laid on hills like this throughout the city without really realizing there were ancient buildings underneath.

Thus, there is a good rule in the capital. If there is a big, grassy hill, it is probably because there are ruins underneath. The government prevents people from developing that land, but no one has the money to excavate. Thus they stay entombed, waiting for future grad students and funding.

This is a great point. Borobrudur was a massive Buddhist temple from the 9th century built in Indonesia. It was "rediscovered" in 1814. The temple was 115 ft high, but after the surrounding vegetation overgrew it, it just looked like a hill.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur

Maybe getting into the canopy is not practical, but if the whole premise was that it was spotted via a satellite photo, surely someone in a helicopter can at least fly over and say confirm whether or not it is worth a closer look.

Helicopter-mounted ground penetrating radar perhaps.

> Commercial helicopters have a range of up to around 330 miles. All you'd need is about $2000 and a 100ft rope.

How many people who don't wear a uniform use a 100ft rope to enter or exit a jungle canopy if they aren't in immediate fear for their life? You're underplaying the logistical difficulty.

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