Posted on 01/12/2024 1:17:18 PM PST by Red Badger
This LIDAR image provided by researchers in January 2024 shows complexes of rectangular platforms arranged around low squares and distributed along wide dug streets at the Kunguints site, Upano Valley in Ecuador. Antoine Dorison, Stéphen Rostain via AP
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A study based on over 20 years of research into an ancient site in the Amazon rainforest has revealed evidence it was once a large-scale hub of interconnected cities that date back more than 2,500 years.
The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science and detail the researchers’ work in mapping the network of settlements, which may be the earliest example of urbanism ever documented in the Amazon.
“It was a lost valley of cities,” said Stéphen Rostain, first author of the study and a director of France’s National Center for Scientific Research. “It’s incredible.”
The team of researchers identified at least 15 distinct settlements connected by a network of roads that stretched 10 to 20 kilometres. The largest roads were found to be 10 metres at their widest.
In total, more than 6,000 earthen platforms were mapped at the Ecuadorian site, each evidence of plazas, ceremonial buildings and residences built along the road system and surrounded by expansive, terraced fields and drainage ditches.
What the research describes is a complex urban layout suggesting large-scale agriculture and a flourishing population. The hub of cities was likely home to some 10,000 farmers, though it may have been as populous as 15,000 or 30,000 at its peak, according to archaeologist Antoine Dorison, a study co-author.
The site was occupied for around 1,000 years, from roughly 500 BC to around 300 to 600 AD — a period roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire in Europe. The population of the Ecuadorian site is comparable to Roman-era London.
“This shows a very dense occupation and an extremely complicated society,” said University of Florida archeologist Michael Heckenberger, who was not involved in the study. “For the region, it’s really in a class of its own in terms of how early it is.”
This LIDAR image provided by researchers in January 2024 shows a main street crossing an urban area, creating an axis along which complexes of rectangular platforms are arranged around low squares at the Copueno site, Upano Valley in Ecuador. Antoine Dorison, Stéphen Rostain via AP
The site was likely inhabited by the Kilamope and later Upano peoples, but not much is known about these cultures.
Pits and hearths were discovered in some of the earthen platforms, as well as jars, grindstones and burnt seeds, the authors told the BBC. The inhabitants also likely ate maize and sweet potatoes and brewed a kind of sweet beer called “chicha.”
First author Rostain was the first archaeologist to discover the site over two decades ago, but recent improvements in light detection and ranging (LIDAR) scans have allowed scientists to pierce through the dense Amazon canopy to view these ancient sites like never before.
This LIDAR mapping shows a landscape that still bears the evidence of human hands thousands of years later, even if there isn’t much in the way of material ruins.
While the Inca, for instance, built with stone, Amazonian societies typically didn’t have stone on hand to build with, so they built with mud, according to archaeologist José Iriarte, who wasn’t involved in the research.
Iriarte told the BBC that the discovery of these cities is like discovering another Mayan civilization, “but with completely different architecture, land use, ceramics.”
The authors of the study write that they hope this research helps us “revise our preconceptions of the Amazonian world” and recognize the immense complexity and diversity of people in the Amazon.
“Such a discovery is another vivid example of the underestimation of Amazonia’s twofold heritage: environmental but also cultural, and therefore Indigenous,” the paper reads.
PinGGG!.........................
Oprah: “Everybody gets a Compound!”
It seems they are all facing the same direction...Is it because the direction of sunrise or sunset??? Or prevailing winds???
I’ve owned more or less South facing houses over the last 50 years.
It’s not an accident.
Was there a giant rolling stone marble?
About 4 tons?
From what I’ve read the early explorers of the Amazon reported large numbers of people and vast open fields where agriculture was practiced. It was not dense impenetrable rain forest like it largely is now.
Humans had apparently terraformed the Amazon along with much of North America. This is covered in the book “1491”. The book is not only a great read but provides a lot of food for thought.
I’ve owned 6 (built 2 of them)...They’ve faced different directions...
Isn’t LIDAR great?
Crop dust with agent orange and go check it out.
that is just amazing. Love that LIDAR
I’ve owned three, all within 30 deg. of South.
Orientation by personal choice [though never the primary factor for purchase, always a factor].
I seem to recall reading a few years ago that according to satellite data or some kind of survey the rainforest had terraced farms and fields under it. So much for it being “the lungs of the planet”.
And.... notice the right angles. Why right angles?
Another mystery is Pumapunku, or Gobekli tepe.......
So much to learn, not so much time.....
There was a HUGE civilation that existed previously.
Don’t be silly, “Jimmy can’t jump”...lol
“Jimmy is hurt...”
“Jimmy likes Elaine.”
“Look to the cookie”........
“Tippy toe, tippy toe.....”
“It just shrinks!”.
Ever see the show on Nat Geo where the host uses LIDAR to discover all sorts of ancient places that nobody would otherwise know are there? Pretty Neat
Anyone remember back to Feb-March of 1966 when the newspapers were telling of submerged cities of the West Coast of South America? I remember it well.
Never heard about it again.
Cthulhu!....................
How fast can the gov. wring enough money to buikd housing for America’s invaders. Have mercy on NY, guys!
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