A Canadian teen sound out hediscovered a lost Maya city using ancient champion maps and satellite imagesprovided by NASA and Google . As the noteworthy story went viral yesterday , a numeral of expert spoke out , enounce it ’s highly unlikely that these feature are those of a forgotten Maya resolution .
News sweep the internet yesterday that William Gadoury , a 15 - year - old boy from Quebec , found a lost Maya metropolis in Mexico by correlating the locations of known settlements with the positions of the brightest stars . He received aid from the Canadian Space Agency ( who provided satellite image , and who described Gadoury ’s work as “ exceptional ” ) as well as Dr. Armand LaRocque , a remote sensing specialist from the University of New Brunswick . The teenager won a medal of virtue for his uncovering and was invited to lead an article to a scientific daybook . Gadoury also received invitations to the national science clean at McGill University and an external conference in Brazil .
But other experts have give tongue to scepticism at Gadoury ’s findings , saying the features read in the space - base pic are merely abandoned corn fields . What ’s more , they argue that the Maya people , though good astronomers , probably did not pick out to determine in areas based on the position of the stars .
“ I applaud the untried youngster ’s campaign , and it ’s exciting to see such interest in the ancient Maya and remote sensing engineering in such a untested person , ” said Thomas Garrison , an anthropologist at the University of Southern California : Dornsife and an expert in remote detection . “ However , ground - truthing is the key to distant sensing research . You have to be able to affirm what you are name in a satellite image or other type of scene . ”
In this special case , Garrison says the rectangular nature of the feature and the secondary botany growing back within it are “ clear signs ” of a relic milpa . A milpa is a harvest - develop scheme used throughout Mesoamerica , primarily in the Yucatan peninsula expanse of Mexico ( which is just where this hypothesize lost Maya city is located ) . The word milpa is select from the Nahuatl term for “ maize plain . ”
“ I ’d guess it ’s been fallow for 10 - 15 geezerhood , ” Garrison told Gizmodo . “ This is obvious to anyone that has expend any metre at all in the Maya lowlands . I hope that this young scholar will consider his pursuits at the university level so that his next find — and there are plenty to be made — will be a meaningful one . ”
Garrison put up Gizmodo with this effigy of a exchangeable feature in an area where he works in Guatemala . He say the milpa was abandon quite recently :
David Stuart , an anthropologist from the Mesoamerica Center - University of Texas at Austin agrees , but his words were less kind . At hisFacebook pagehe have-to doe with to Gadoury ’s work as “ junk scientific discipline . ”
“ reckon such patterns is a rorschach cognitive operation , since situation are everywhere , and so are the ace , ” he wrote . “ The solid feature that was found on Google Earth is indeed man - made , but it ’s an old fallow cornfield , or milpa . ”
Ivan Šprajc , a investigator from the Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies in Slovenia , also said the idea that the Maya correlated their liquidation with stars is “ utterly ” improbable .
“ We do know that the Maya were very honorable astronomers and that they were concerned in certain stars and asterism , ” he explained to Gizmodo . “ But how could constellation reveal the positioning of Maya situation remains a mystery to me . Very few Maya constellations have been identified , and even in these pillowcase we do not know how many and which stars exactly composed each configuration . ”
As a answer , Šprajc says it ’s impossible to support whether any correlational statistics exists between the constellations and the location of Maya cities . Moreover , anthropologists lie with of several environmental factor that did influence the locating of Maya settlements in the central Yucatan lowlands , such as proximity to small lake . ( Also known as “ aguadas , ” these pools were the only impudent water source in this karstic environment , which is landscape painting characterized by the dissipation of soluble stone and underground drainage system with sinkholes and caves . ) The Maya cities were also place on slightly elevated grounds , and on the edges of wetlands called “ bajos ” which were appropriate for intensive farming .
“ This is not to say that uranology was not important to the Maya , ” state Šprajc . “ On the reverse , they were keen observer of the sky , they knew the occultation cycles and were capable of forecast significant moment in synodic oscillation of Venus and in all likelihood of other planets . ”
Šprajc says that astronomy did play an important purpose in computer architecture and urban planning , but it was based on phenomena mention on the horizon , namely significant rising and correct point of some heavenly target , specially the sunlight . This often dictated the preference of important buildings , and sometimes even their emplacement relative to each other .
Lastly , Šprajc pointed out that the coordinates of the Maya metropolis , which Gadoury take is in northerly Guatemala , is in reality located in southern Campeche , Mexico . He also believes , like Garrison and Stuart , that the features evince in the satellite photos is an one-time milpa , abandoned long time ago “ but unquestionably not one C ago . ”
Based on these expert reaction , it seems unlikely that this Canadian teen ’s green rectangles are lost Maya social organisation . But as Garrison pointed out , only a ground - base expedition to the area will confirm things one way or another . At the same time , while Gadoury ’s enthusiasm and creativity should remain to guarantee praise , the contributions of the Canadian Space Agency and from Armand LaRocque , the University of New Brunswick professor who corroborate the Gadoury ’s research , deserve further examination .
We ’ve reached out to Gadoury , the Canadian Space Agency , as well as LaRocque for comment and will update this post if we hear back .
Update : 15:10 : We received a answer from Daniel De Lisle , Project Officer , RCM Data Utilization & Applications at the Canadian Space Agency , who assisted William Gadoury with his project .
We asked De Lisle to answer to the claims made by expert that this is “ junk science , ” and that the objects in the orbiter photos are probably abandon milpas . To which he responded : “ The expanse of pastime covers more than 78 square kilometer , and many linear features that appear manmade are visible from space . ” Which is not much of an solvent .
We also asked him if the CSA seek expert advice from Maya expert at any decimal point during the task .
“ CSA provides an chance to search the raise capableness of RADARSAT-2 and their likely contributions to various applications , ” he responded . “ This opportunity consists of a loanword of RADARSAT-2 datum to research projects . The primary upshot pursued by CSA is to ensure that Canadian stakeholder benefit from the investment in this satellite , through inquiry and development bodily function . Scientists are responsible of their research and must recognise the CSA provided the imagery in their publications . ”
Again , not much of an answer .
“ The only fashion to know is to organise an dispatch on the site to formalize , ” he pronounce . And on this point , he ’s right — but it ’s front all-fired improbable there ’s anything at the site of interest .
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