Abstract
Abstract Despite claims that ancient Maya canals are found throughout the central Maya Lowlands, our study of satellite and aircraft imagery indicates that canals are concentrated in three regions: northern Belize, southern Quintana Roo, Mexico, and along the upper Candelaria River and its tributaries in Campeche, Mexico. Earlier reports of lattices of small canals in the karstic depressions, or bajos, of Peten, Guatemala, based on the analysis of airborne radar imagery, have not been verified with other remote sensing data or by field research. Our analyses of this same airborne imagery and Seasat satellite radar imagery demonstrate that the spatial resolution of, and speckle noise in, existing radar imagery make it inadequate for mapping lattice patterns of small canals. Radar imagery and Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery were, however, useful in mapping large canals, which in most cases are connected to lattices of smaller canals. Furthermore, our analyses of wetland soils, vegetation, and hydrology conf...
Published Version
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