Could You Find A Lost City Using Just Your Computer?

Rick Lane investigates how a wealth of online tools and information has opened the door to history.

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Earlier this year, the archeological world was rocked by news that a Canadian 14-year-old had discovered a lost Mayan City in Mexico. William Gadoury came up with a theory that the Mayans built their cities and pyramids on sites chosen according to the civilisation’s star constellations. While presenting his claims at a scientific conference in Quebec, Gadoury was overheard by members of the Canadian Space Agency.Intrigued,the CSA turned one of its satellites normally used for tracking sea-ice to the coordinate spostulated by Gadoury. To the CSA’s astonishment, the images appeared to show man-made structures, straight lines and flat squares highly suggestive of a Mayan pyramid.

For a few days, it appeared Gadoury had made the most significant archeological discovery of the century. However, several archeologists were doubtful about the claim, believing that the squares spotted by the CSA were nothing more than fields. As it transpired, a Mesoamerican Archeologist named Geoffery Braswell had been working in the area at the time. Braswell recognised one of the images as part of Lagunael Civalon, as wampy lake in Mexico, while the other images were indeed fields, likely marijuana fields, to be precise.