1,000-Year-Old Village Discovered in New Mexico
For more than 40 years, archaeologists have been coaxing what they could from the traces of an ancient Puebloan settlement in New Mexico they call Blue J.
Buried under a thousand years’ worth of eroded stone and wind-blown sand, Blue J has intrigued experts with what little it has revealed: the outlines of nearly 60 households, situated around a series of open plazas, the masonry and building styles dating their construction to the 11th century.
Almost entirely unexcavated, the settlement sits just 70 kilometers south of Chaco Canyon — the nexus of Ancestral Pueblo culture — and was built during the heyday of Chaco’s widest influence.
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http://westerndigs.org/hidden-architecture-of-1000-year-old-village-discovered-in-new-mexico/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Drones unearth details on buried ancient village in New Mexico
By Associated Press
April 22, 2014 | 5:25pm
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A drone, left, flies over Blue J area in northwestern New Mexico. Researchers outfitted a customized drone with a heat-sensing camera to unearth what they believe are ceremonial pits and other features at the site of an ancient village in New Mexico.
Photo: AP [/font]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Recently published research describes how archaeologists outfitted a customized drone with a heat-sensing camera to unearth what they believe are ceremonial pits and other features at the site of an ancient village in New Mexico.
The discovery of the structures hidden beneath layers of sediment and sagebrush is being hailed as an important step that could help archaeologists shed light on mysteries long buried by eroding desert landscapes from the American Southwest to the Middle East. The results of the research were published earlier this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Since the 1970s, archaeologists have known that aerial images of thermal infrared wavelengths of light could be a powerful tool for spotting cultural remains on the ground. But few have had access to million-dollar satellites, and helicopters and planes have their limits.
Now, technology is catching up with demand.
Archaeologists can get quality images from very specific altitudes and angles at any time of day and in a range of weather using inexpensive drones and commercially available cameras that have as much as five times the resolution of those available just a few years ago. A basic eight-rotor drone starts at about $3,700.
More:
http://nypost.com/2014/04/22/drones-unearth-details-on-buried-ancient-village-in-new-mexico/
Ichingcarpenter, thanks for breaking this story. Thought of your O.P. as soon as I saw this article.
