An expert has called 15-year-old William Gadoury’s claims about discovering a Mayan city ‘junk science’.
Earlier this week the Canadian teen made headlines when he said he happened upon an ancient Mayan site deep inside the Yucatán forest using nothing more than Google Maps, ancient Central American star charts and satellite images he had requested from the Canadian Space Agency.
William’s theorized correlations between the stars and the location of Mayan cities appeared to be supported by satellite imagery and the youngster was on his way to solidifying himself as a digital-Indiana-Jones-type until he drew skepticism from famed anthropologist, David Stuart.
Stuart, who was himself a Mesoamerican child prodigy after he interpreted a syllable in the Mayan language that had stumped researchers before him at just 15, has dismissed the Quebec boy’s find as “false” and called out experts who went to the press before checking his claims.
Dr Stuart took to Facebook to say after trying to ignore the claims, once the news made it to the BBC he felt it was time to say the science behind the find was bogus.
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“The whole thing is a mess – a terrible example of junk science hitting the internet in free-fall,” said Dr Stuart who is the David and Linda Schele Professor of Mesoamerican Art and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin.
“The ancient Maya didn’t plot their ancient cities according to constellations. Seeing such patterns is a Rorschach process, since sites are everywhere, and so are stars.”
While it was claimed Gadoury’s find was a “city” – a site containing a pyramid and about 30 other structures, which the teen named ‘K’aak Chi’ or Mayan for ‘Mouth of Fire’ – Stuart says it’s something far less exciting.
“The square feature that was found on Google Earth is indeed man-made, but it’s an old fallow cornfield, or milpa,” he said.
Dr Stuart said that William was not the blame for the inaccuracies, saying he was “clearly smart and enthusiastic about archaeology and the Maya,” and it was the experts who should be more cautious.
“What steams me most here is the irresponsibility of ‘experts’ who sought the media exposure,” he said on his Facebook page.
