Lidar Reveals a New City Hidden in the Cambodian Jungle

The iconic Angkor Wat temple rises from the jungle in modern-day Cambodia. (Credit: Bule Sky Studio/Shutterstock) A wide-ranging aerial study of archeological sites in Cambodia reveals a Khmer empire that was larger and more sophisticated than previously thought. By attaching a Lidar scanning system to helicopter skids, Damian Evans, the leader of the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative (CALI), peered beneath 734 square miles of dense rainforest canopy to map the topography of the ground beneath. He found dozens of new sites that were previously invisible to archaeologists, and significant evidence of large-scale human endeavors to shape the land. Evans discovered a network of roads between settlements, quarries and diverted rivers, in addition to swathes of ancient settlements that had previously eluded archaeologists. His work significantly expands the scale and emphasizes the interconnectedness of the ancient empire, which was the largest in the world at its height in the 12th century.