“I’ve been mapping in arduous conditions since the early 1980s…using machetes to cut sight-lines in the [Guatemalan] jungle. The LiDAR offered an unprecedented view, as though a ‘magic lens’ had filtered through all that obscuring forest. Entire cities, including the great metropolis of Tikal, were suddenly laid bare.” —Brown anthropologist Stephen Houston, who helped uncover a vast complex of Maya infrastructure using laser radar.