Drone-mounted lasers reveal ancient settlement off Florida coast

• Archaeological remains date from 900 to 1200 CE
• Lidar crucial to discovery: 'This technology is unbelievable'

Drone-mounted lasers have revealed details of the architecture of an ancient island settlement off Florida's Gulf coast, researchers said in a new paper published on Monday.

University of Florida archaeologists, doctoral candidate Terry E Barbour and Professor Ken Sassaman, used aerial drones with light detection and ranging (Lidar) sensors - to create detailed 3D maps of the surface of Raleigh Island.