An ancient, lost city in Southern Mexico hidden under jungle canopy for centuries, spotted via just searching on Google. Luke Auld-Thomas’ research on Mayan settlements had him poking around on the internet which led him to a LIDAR survey - a laser-based technology used in this case for terrain mapping. When he ran the data, he realized there was an entire city, of a significant size, entirely covered in dense vegetation. What’s it like, finding a whole city, without ever setting foot on the ground? And could there be more of these ancient settlements, just a few clicks away, waiting to be found? Tulane doctoral student Luke Auld-Thomas joins The Excerpt to share how he stumbled into the discovery of a lifetime.

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