According to Mark Willis, an archaeologist, Andes are an extremely complicated territory to map. The main problem being the local weather, satellites are having problems reaching under the constantly changing clouds and even if they manage there is still the haze to consider. Luckily, Mark Wills has started to use UAV precisely for the purpose of mapping Andes. So the search for long lost pyramids and burial mounds could begin once again.
"earthen mounds and platform pyramids near Hacienda Zuleta" are especially difficult to map, Mark says. He says that these location are very resistant to visual capture, he and other archaeologists aim to change that. They visited the site in August 2013 and attempted to capture close-up aerial pictures of the area.
They used a low flying drone to map the are whilst under the clouds and haze, but even though they succeeded and got clear imagery, it wasn't an easy task to discover eroded pyramids which were covered by grass.
"This was a challenging task as most of the pyramids are located in the bottom of steep constricted canyon inhabited by Andean Condors. To make things more challenging there were high winds, clouds, and quirks of the micro-climates within the canyon to contend with. In spite of that, we were able to fly nine missions and collect hundreds of photographs in just a couple of days."
It is not only the pyramids alone that are interesting, it is also the way they were build in position to each other that of interest to the scientists. Finally, with the help of the hundreds of pictures that they were able to collect with their UAV, they can now for the first time accurately analyse the ways in which the structures face one another.
For more information check out the links bellow:
source: http://gizmodo.com/drone-mapping-lost-pyramids-in-the-andes-1447970230
image author: Mark Willis
Image source: http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/193m0z4c71jw9png/ku-xlarge.png
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