article_snippet: The expedition was launched after aerial light detection scanning  -- known as LIDAR -- uncovered what appeared to be man-made structures below the remote Honduran rainforest, National Geographic said.
article_snippet: a team of U.S. and Honduran archaeologists, a LIDAR engineer, an ethnobotanist, anthropologists and documentary filmmakers were protected by Honduran Special forces, The magazine said.
article_snippet: Writer Douglas Preston said a team of U.S. and Honduran archaeologists, a LIDAR engineer, an ethnobotanist, anthropologists and documentary filmmakers emerged February 25, after documenting the ruins of a "vanished culture."
article_snippet: The expedition found earth works, including an earthen pyramid as well as a collection of stone sculptures, thought to potentially have been burial offerings.
article_snippet: Archaeologist Oscar Neil Cruz from the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History (IHAH) estimated they dated from A.D. 1000 to 1400, Writer Douglas Preston wrote.
article_snippet: The researchers were greeted by wildlife which appeared never before to have seen humans, wandering unafraid through The researchers camp.
article_snippet: This is clearly the most undisturbed rain forest in Central America.
highlights_snippet: A team documented the site after aerial light scanning showed man-made structures .