广东省深圳市罗湖区高三2023-2024学年上学期1月期末英语试题试题详情
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While conducting a survey by airplane of northern Guatemala, researchers detected an ancient Maya site. "We can now see the entire landscape of the Maya region" in this section of Guatemala, said Carlos Morales-Aguilar, one of the researchers from the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas.
The findings were the result of the survey using lidar (雷达), or light detection and ranging, which has been revolutionary for studying historic sites. In lidar, lasers are sent out and the reflected light is used to create imagery of a landscape. The technology is particularly beneficial in areas with limited visibility such as the rainforest in maya site, as lasers can enter the heavy tree canopy, the thick cover formed by the leafy upper branches in a forest.
The lidar data showed "for the first time an area that was integrated politically and economically, and never seen before in other places in the Western Hemisphere (西半球), " Carlos wrote in the study. Using data from the scans, the team identified more than 1, 000 settlements dotting the region. They were interconnected by 100 miles of causeways that the Maya likely traveled on foot. They also detected the remains of several large platforms and pyramids, along with canals and reservoirs used for water collection.
So what made this region so attractive that the Maya would want to settle there in the first place?
"For the Maya the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin was the ‘Goldilocks Zone', " Ross Ensley wrote, partner of Carlos, a geologist from the Institute for Geological Study of the Maya Lowlands in Houston, Texas. "The Maya settled in this region because it had the right mix of uplands for settlement and lowlands for agriculture. " Uplands lie above the level where flooding occurs. They provided a source for limestone, their primary building material, and dry land to live on. The lowlands are mostly seasonal swamps (沼泽), which provided space for wetland agriculture as well as organic-rich soil for use in terraced agriculture.
Researchers hope lidar technology will help them explore sections of Guatemala that have remained a mystery for centuries.
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