"The combination of land cleared of its rainforest for grazing and satellite survey have revealed a sophisticated pre-Columbian monument-building society in the upper Amazon Basin on the east side of the Andes," according to the British archeological journal Antiquity. "This hitherto unknown people constructed earthworks of precise geometric plan connected by straight orthogonal roads." (See photograph) "...the 'geoglyph culture' stretches over a region more than 250 km across..." and archeologists have apparently seen less than a tenth of it.
This is a fantastic discovery for several different reasons. First and most obvious: this is apparently a new culture and there's no telling how big it actually was or how this find will change the history of the region. Secondly, this is yet another example of how limited our knowledge of the past really is. Who knows how many more civilizations have yet to be discovered around the world? New sites are being found all the time. It's also interesting because it shows that deforestation is nothing new and occurs in waves as civilizations rise and fall over the millenia.
Comments