Civilization discovered in the Amazon estimated to have had more people than Rome

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Hundreds of never-before-seen ancient ‘earthworks’ discovered in the Amazon
Many of these structures date to around C.E. 100–300, during the time of the Aquiry civilization, and may have been used for ceremonial purposes

Tens of thousands of undiscovered ancient structures known as “earthworks” are likely hidden in the Amazon near the border between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.

That’s what researchers concluded after flying a plane equipped with remote sensing instruments over an approximately 4,497-square-kilometer (1,736-square-mile) region in Brazil. They detected 396 new earthworks, suggesting that the Southwest Amazon could contain more of these structures than researchers ever expected—somewhere between 24,000 and 30,000 in total.

A particular kind of earthwork kept showing up in the images: mysterious, geometric designs in the ground called geoglyphs. The structures can extend several football fields in size, and they are a signature of the so-called Aquiry civilization that inhabited the Amazon between 600 B.C.E. and C.E. 850. Researchers think geoglyphs may have served ceremonial or cultural purposes, such as a hosting site for festivities, but their exact function is still up for debate.

Archaeologists had identified geoglyphs in this Amazon region before but never on this scale. “We were surprised that we found about 10 times more of the geoglyphs than we ever thought,” says Martti Pa¨rssinen, lead author of the study and an emeritus professor at the University of Helsinki. The results published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

What’s more, based on the number and distribution of the recently found geoglyphs, Pa¨rssinen and his team estimate that the Aquiry population may have reached up to three million people at its apparent peak, around C.E. 100–300. The finding also suggests the civilization would have spanned 183,000 square kilometers (70,657 square miles), an area about the size of North Dakota.

The results, if confirmed, could force archaeologists to reevaluate the total population of the Amazon before Spanish and Portuguese colonization, the authors write in the study.

“What we have studied represents less than 3 percent of the whole Amazonia,” Pa¨rssinen says, adding that it is “probable” that there are other sites where the population density may be similarly high, indicating a precolonial population in the Amazon of possibly tens of millions of people. “That’s something amazing and something new,” he says.

The study is “really fascinating,” says Heiko Prümers, a researcher at the German Archaeological Institute, who has studied ancient settlements in the Amazon but was not involved with the new research. That discovery helps to correct the perception “that the Amazon region is a region of ‘untouched nature.’”

But, he adds, it does have some limitations: It’s unclear to Prümers, for instance, whether structures found in the same vicinity were counted as individual “sites” or combined—which could have possibly affected the authors’ total estimates, he says. And, Prümers says, the high number of sites could be the result of “frequent relocations” by the Aquiry rather than a high population density.

To Pa¨rssinen, the findings force a deeper reckoning with humanity’s stewardship of the Amazon today. An estimated one third of the iconic forest has been damaged by modern human activity, and about 17 percent has been completely deforested. But 2,000 years ago, archaeological evidence suggests ancient humans lived in balance with the environment, even while shaping the land with possibly tens of thousands of geoglyphs, Pa¨rssinen says.

“We could learn something about how they managed the forest in the past,” he says.

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Big timber making this up so we continue to cut it down

We wuz kangs?

Did they ever manage to invent the wheel?

Civilizations that fell from colonization from within the Americas.

That disease they died from? It was from others within their own continents…just like what the Europeans experienced.

I've been waiting for mass information to come out since recent years have seen a much larger push for the LIDAR excursions in and around the Amazon.

This thread hits me a little harder because I just finished reading The Lost City of Z this past weekend, and just ordered Exploration Fawcett to read as well. shite like this is fascinating to me.

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“We could learn something about how they managed the forest in the past,” he says.

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Yet, they still disappeared, it seems.

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the so-called Aquiry civilization

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Does that mean “Don’t Ask?”

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We wuz kangs?

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Éramos reyes

I really liked the book.

The movie was trash.

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Gonna check that out

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And I mistyped...it's Exploration Fawcett (not Expedition).

It is referenced in the book, so I googled it and PF's son created the book based on PF's journal and letters and stuff like that. I am pumped about reading it as I imagine it goes into much greater detail on some of the stories that were mentioned in tLCoZ. And tLCoZ even references hidden structures at the very end of it as well. The Amazon is a gigantic mystery that certain circles don't seem to want to try to figure out at all. It's baffling.

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I love LiDAR.

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The LiDAR on my Roborok never finds cool stuff like this.