Archaeologists have unearthed a collection of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest, where at least 10,000 farmers lived around 2,000 years ago.
A series of buried earth mounds and roads in Ecuador was first noticed more than twenty years ago by archaeologist Stéphen Rostain. But at the time, “I wasn’t sure how it all fit together,” said Rostain, one of the researchers who reported the discovery Thursday in the journal Science.
Recent mapping using laser sensors has revealed that these sites were part of a dense network of settlements and communication routes, nestled in the forested foothills of the Andes, that lasted a thousand years.
“It was a lost valley of cities,” said Mr. Rostain, who leads the research at the National Center for Scientific Research [France]. It’s incredible. »
The settlements were occupied by the Upano people between about 500 BC and 300 to 600 AD ― a period roughly contemporary with the Roman Empire in Europe, the researchers found.
Residential and ceremonial buildings erected on more than 6,000 earthen mounds were surrounded by agricultural fields and drainage canals. The largest roads were ten meters wide and stretched for ten to twenty kilometers.
Although it is difficult to estimate populations, the site was home to at least 10,000 inhabitants ― and perhaps as many as 15,000 or 30,000 at its peak, said archaeologist Antoine Dorison, co-author of the studied at the same French institute. This figure is comparable to the estimated population of London in Roman times, which was then the largest city in Britain.
“It shows very dense occupation and an extremely complex society,” said Michael Heckenberger, an archaeologist at the University of Florida who was not involved in the study. For the region, it is truly in a class of its own in terms of precociousness. »
José Iriarte, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter, explains that building the roads and thousands of earth mounds required an elaborate system of organized labor.
“The Incas and Mayans built with stone, but the people of the Amazon generally didn’t have stone available to build with ― they built with mud. It’s still an immense amount of work,” stressed Iriarte, who played no role in the research.
The Amazon is often considered a “virgin wilderness where only small groups of people live”. But recent discoveries have shown us how much more complex the past was, he added.
Scientists have also recently found evidence of complex societies in the rainforest before European contact elsewhere in the Amazon, including Bolivia and Brazil.
“There has always been an incredible diversity of populations and settlements in the Amazon, and there is not just one way to live,” recalled Mr. Rostain. We’re just learning more about them. »