Click the Pic
End Freepathons!
Sheesh!! Do It Now!
Donate today
SIR! MONTHLY, SIR!
Sponsors will donate $10
For each new monthly sign-up
Posted on 01/16/2012 9:06:28 AM PST by Theoria
Edmar Araújo still remembers the awe.
As he cleared trees on his family’s land decades ago near Rio Branco, an outpost in the far western reaches of the Brazilian Amazon, a series of deep earthen avenues carved into the soil came into focus.
“These lines were too perfect not to have been made by man,” said Mr. Araújo, a 62-year-old cattleman. “The only explanation I had was that they must have been trenches for the war against the Bolivians.”
But these were no foxholes, at least not for any conflict waged here at the dawn of the 20th century. According to stunning archaeological discoveries here in recent years, the earthworks on Mr. Araújo’s land and hundreds like them nearby are much, much older — potentially upending the conventional understanding of the world’s largest tropical rain forest.
The deforestation that has stripped the Amazon since the 1970s has also exposed a long-hidden secret lurking underneath thick rain forest: flawlessly designed geometric shapes spanning hundreds of yards in diameter.
Alceu Ranzi, a Brazilian scholar who helped discover the squares, octagons, circles, rectangles and ovals that make up the land carvings, said these geoglyphs found on deforested land were as significant as the famous Nazca lines, the enigmatic animal symbols visible from the air in southern Peru.
“What impressed me the most about these geoglyphs was their geometric precision, and how they emerged from forest we had all been taught was untouched except by a few nomadic tribes,” said Mr. Ranzi, a paleontologist who first saw the geoglyphs in the 1970s and, years later, surveyed them by plane.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mann, Z, etc.
““If one wants to recreate pre-Columbian Amazonia, most of the forest needs to be removed, with many people and a managed, highly productive landscape replacing it,” said William Woods, a geographer at the University of Kansas who is part of a team studying the Acre geoglyphs.
“I know that this will not sit well with ardent environmentalists,” Mr. Woods said, “but what else can one say?”
1493 and all that.
Landscapes change.
When my ancestors came to this county in 1889 there were NO TREES. Now much of it is covered by mesquite and other types of trees.
When they came it was all prairie grass. They broke out the grass covered land for the first time. There were no towns. There was no timber to build a home. They lived in Dugouts for a number of years. The little timber that was used in the construction was brought in by wagon.
They were a hardy and independent lot. They came here to be left alone and live their lives in peace. That is all we want today.
ping
Mexican cattle poop planted the mesquite trees.
There is very little land in S. America that hasn’t been changed and molded by the hand of man for his own purposes.
Mann’s book 1491 referenced in the article is excellent. I recommend it.
|
|
|
| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
|
|
Thanks Theoria and esquirette. |
|
|
|
|
Good luck with that. </Spongebob>
I'm calling BS on that one...
Well then - you guys would get a kick out of the “environmentalists” - “protecting” the natural state of areas in California.
They are desertified now - due to overlogging for the silver industry. What were pine forests are now desert.
And the left - passes laws - to keep it in its “natural state” of desert.
Stupid is as stupid does.
"The Spanish left a deep mark on Texas. Their European livestock caused mesquite to spread inland while farmers tilled and irrigated the land, changing the landscape forever."
That says it all. Just like fining the oil companies for not using a non-existent additive.
The cattle ate mesquite beans as they passed through Northern Mexico and crapped the beans out in South Texas after digesting the hull. The trees slowly spread throughout the state in this fashion all through the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.
cattle poop, BS, uh...
It’s still BS, isn’t it?
(OK, only half, the other half is CS)...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.