2026-04-03
37 分钟This is The Guardian.
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Apocalypse No, how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong by Marcus Horodson,
read by Diana Bermudez.
As a seven-year-old, Francisco Estrada Belli was afraid all of history
would have been discovered by the time he was old enough to contribute.
The year was 1970 and he and his parents had come from Rome to visit relatives
in the Central American country of Guatemala.
On the trip, they visited the ancient Maya ruins at Tikal.
I was completely mesmerized, Estrada Belli told me recently.
It was jungle everywhere.
There were animals and then these enormous majestic temples.
I asked questions but felt the answers were not good enough.
I decided there and then that I wanted to be answering them.
55 years later, Estrada Belli is now one of the archaeologists helping to rewrite the history
of the Maya peoples who built Tikal.
Thanks to technological advances, we are entering a new age of discovery in the field of ancient history.
Improved DNA analysis, advances in plant and climate science,
soil and isotope chemistry, linguistics, and other techniques such as a laser mapping technology