A city that was completely lost to time in the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa has been re-discovered. The ancient stone huts that can be seen from the naked eye was actually an active city that had been lost for 200 years. Archaeologists in South Africa had been observing and researching the dense vegetation for three decades and had barely known much about it. Thanks to LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology, the entire site has been revealed for what it was once: a metropolis city made up of hundreds of housing units and trade networks.
The city once called Kweneng was home to a Tswana-speaking ethnic group and was home to less than ten thousand people housed in 800 homesteads. This allows researchers to fill in the missing pieces of information because the pre-colonial history of this region has no written record to it. Now that can be done by using the LIDAR technology. This is the same technology that was used to help find an ancient Mayan megalopolis from a year ago. By bouncing billions of laser light pulses off the lower western slopes of the Suikerbosrand hills near Johannesburg, researchers were able to uncover all vegetation that hid the once busy city.
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LIDAR scanning blasts laser lights onto the landscape and as soon as a pulse hits an object, any solid object, the light is reflected back to the sensors, allowing it to figure out precisely where the interception took place in 3D imaging. When the LIDAR plane collects all the data and is sent back down to the ground for analyzing, the data can then be downloaded and projected.
Southern Africa's lost city as seen on LIDAR. (Image via 
Karim Sadr)
Studies now show that Kweneng spanned 20 square kilometers and was at its prime between the 15th and 19th century. Researchers also think Kweneng was a thriving city during its peak. Many of the parallel rock walls discovered using LIDAR suggests there were many different paths into the city - most of them being used for livestock transportation throughout the city. Two massive enclosures were also found in the heart of the city which takes up space at an estimated 10,000 square meters. Archaeologists think these might have been kraals that were used to house close to a thousand cattle.
The city may have fallen due to civil unrest just like many other Tswana cities. LIDAR has helped to reveal more about the history of the city even though all parts of the city are gone - including the citizens, livestock, stone towers, homesteads, and the wealth.
The use of LIDAR helps researchers understand what people of South Africa were like, who they were, what they did and what types of activities they took part in.
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