Ancient cities discovered in the Amazon are the largest yet found

Please forgive a brief opening thread post...I'm not feeling well, but thought some of our resident history buffs might be interested in this.

"Aerial surveys have revealed the largest pre-colonial cities in the Amazon yet discovered, linked by an extensive network of roads.
The settlements are much bigger than others in the Amazon,” says Stéphen Rostain at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. “They are comparable with Maya sites.
What’s more, at between 3000 and 1500 years old, these cities are also older than other pre-Columbian ones discovered in the Amazon. Why the people who built them disappeared isn’t clear.

Rostain and his colleagues have been studying archaeological sites in the Upano valley of the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the foothills of the Andes, since the 1990s.
In 2015, Rostain’s team did an aerial survey with lidar, a laser scanning technique that can create a detailed 3D map of the surface beneath most vegetation, revealing features not normally visible to us.

Overall there were five major settlements in the area surveyed. They could be described as garden cities, says Rostain, due to their low density of buildings.
The survey also revealed a network of straight roads created by digging out soil and piling it on the sides. The longest extends for at least 25 kilometres, but might continue beyond the area that was surveyed."

So, apparently, the Amazon was much more greatly inhabited than anyone had ever guessed, one archaeologist estimated as many as 8 million the Pre-Columbian population as high as 8 million!

Here's a Youtube vid on the find:

Cool opening thread.
I had seen this earlier today on my news feed. Pretty neat. So many discoveries lately that are completely changing our understanding of past civilizations.

From the Ariel views I saw it looked enormous. And the jungle just took over and buried that huge city in the middle of the Amazon.

Feel better

a reply to: lostgirl

Every time these guys think they have the Amazon and its past figured out, it throws them another curve ball and they have to completely re-think their theories, which is good. That's how science should work, but it doesn't always.

a reply to: Klassified

The Why Files has mentioned the land mass that use to connect Africa to other continents a few times. It's an interesting theory that the more we find out, the more possible it becomes.

a reply to: lostgirl

is this the same as the one posted the other day?


link to thread,

Huge ancient city found in the Amazon. page: 1

still pretty cool.

originally posted by: BernnieJGato
a reply to: lostgirl

is this the same as the one posted the other day?


link to thread,

Huge ancient city found in the Amazon. page: 1

still pretty cool.

Oh my gosh, yes...so sorry!

My apologies, Moderators - didn't mean to add to your workload.