Archaeologists have long thought that the Amazon was too hostile to have ever been able to harbor a developed urban society, as in certain tropical areas of Central America or Southeast Asia. But they were wrong.
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Remnants of an ancient, vanished civilization have been spotted in the Amazon. It had been 20 years since scientists had the intuition of their existence and very recently the traces of 26 urban sites were discovered, over an area of 4,500 square km, located in present-day Bolivia. The Amazon rainforest therefore housed an ancient civilization about 1,500 years ago before the Spanish conquest, indicates an article published a few days ago in the journal Nature. The article describes earthen pyramids that could measure 22m high at the time, surrounded by alleys and paths built in height. These fortified enclosures also included large terraces.
Mysterious mounds in the southwest corner of the Amazon Basin were once the site of ancient urban settlements https://t.co/BZFtK5DyRr
— nature (@Nature) May 29, 2022
These remains may have gone unnoticed until now because they were covered by earth and vegetation and totally invisible. In fact, it was aerial observations coupled with the Lidar technique that made it possible to discover these remains. Lidar is a remote sensing technology that uses lasers to recreate a three-dimensional image of the state of the ground. It’s not a radar, but it works somewhat on the same principle by sending tens of thousands of light pulses per second from an airplane, pulses which are sent back by the ground and which make it possible to precisely analyze the state relief.
The first aerial analyzes of the site started in 2019, three years ago, but without this technology explains the main author of the article, who is an archaeologist in Berlin, the excavations on site in the middle of the Amazon forest would have taken 400 years. This discovery is all the more precious since archaeological dating shows that this civilization died out around 1400. This is why it could still have gone unnoticed for a long time.
The explanation for its disappearance could be caused by environmental changes. Research has also revealed the presence of water reservoirs in this city, which could indicate that these areas may not have always been wet. After this new discovery, the Amazonian history changes perspective, and the archaeologists underline the urgency to further protect this heritage and these areas from massive and uncontrolled deforestation.
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