Huge valley of ancient cities built 2,500 years ago found in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest area

[Edmond Dantès]

Laser-sensor technology reveals network of earthen mounds and buried roads in rainforest area of Ecuador.

Archaeologists have uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest that was home to at least 10,000 farmers about 2,000 years ago.

A series of earthen mounds and buried roads in Ecuador was first noticed more than two decades ago by archaeologist Stéphen Rostain. But at the time, "I wasn't sure how it all fit together," said Rostain, one of the researchers who reported on the finding in the journal Science on Thursday.
The thick cover of vegetation in the Bolivian rainforest had made it difficult for archaeologists to find the sites.

Recent mapping by laser-sensor technology revealed those sites to be part of a dense network of settlements and connecting roadways, tucked into the forested foothills of the Andes, that lasted about 1,000 years.

"It was a lost valley of cities," said Rostain, who directs investigations at France's National Center for Scientific Research. "It's incredible."

The settlements were occupied by the Upano people between about 500BC and AD300 to 600 – a period roughly contemporaneous with the Roman empire in Europe, the researchers found.

Residential and ceremonial buildings erected on more than 6,000 earthen mounds were surrounded by agricultural fields with drainage canals. The largest roads were 33 feet (10 meters) wide and stretched for 6-12 miles (10-20km).

While it is difficult to estimate populations, the site was home to at least 10,000 inhabitants – and perhaps as many as 15,000 or 30,000 at its peak, said archaeologist Antoine Dorison, a study co-author at the same French institute. That is comparable to the estimated population of Roman-era London, then Britain's largest city.

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(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. Archaeologists have uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest that was home to at least 10,000 farmers around 2,000 years according to a paper published on Thursday, January 11, 2024 in the Journal Science.)

"This shows a very dense occupation and an extremely complicated society," said the University of Florida archaeologist 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."

José Iriarte, a University of Exeter archaeologist, said it would have required an elaborate system of organized labor to build the roads and thousands of earthen mounds.

"The Incas and Mayans built with stone, but people in Amazonia didn't usually have stone available to build – they built with mud. It's still an immense amount of labor," said Iriarte, who had no role in the research.

The Amazon is often thought of as a "pristine wilderness with only small groups of people. But recent discoveries have shown us how much more complex the past really is," he said.

Scientists have recently also found evidence of intricate rainforest societies that predated European contact elsewhere in the Amazon, including in Bolivia and in Brazil.

"There's always been an incredible diversity of people and settlements in the Amazon, not only one way to live," said Rostain. "We're just learning more about them."

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Valley of lost cities that flourished 2,000 years ago found in Amazon

Laser-sensor technology reveals network of earthen mounds and buried roads in rainforest area of Ecuador

www.theguardian.com

https://www.science.org/content/article/laser-mapping-reveals-oldest-amazonian-cities-built-2500-years-ago

Study:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi6317?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D78840278829363947479203425753230889555%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1705045962

Abstract:

A dense system of pre-Hispanic urban centers has been found in the Upano Valley of Amazonian Ecuador, in the eastern foothills of the Andes. Fieldwork and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) analysis have revealed an anthropized landscape with clusters of monumental platforms, plazas, and streets following a specific pattern intertwined with extensive agricultural drainages and terraces as well as wide straight roads running over great distances. Archaeological excavations date the occupation from around 500 BCE to between 300 and 600 CE. The most notable landscape feature is the complex road system extending over tens of kilometers, connecting the different urban centers, thus creating a regional-scale network. Such extensive early development in the Upper Amazon is comparable to similar Maya urban systems recently highlighted in Mexico and Guatemala.


LIDAR technology is the gift that keeps giving in the archaeology field and there's still 116sq miles still to survey in the adjoining area! 😁

 

[Kalentan]

Woah- that is incredible!

 

[onpoint]

 

[Dan Thunder]

Crazy that such an obviously massive and important settlement remained completely undiscovered. Makes you wonder how many small ones there are out there. It's sounding more like the Amazon will have been far more densely populated than people have assumed.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

LIDAR technology is the gift that keeps giving in the archaeology field and there's still 116sq miles still to survey in the adjoining area! 😁

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I mentioned elsewhere on the forum on how like, there aren't much if any truly 'big' discoveries in archaeology anymore, especially in capturing the public imagination, as opposed to iterations and nuances of what we already know. LiDAR is perhaps the biggest thing that would make me reconsider that statement, because there really is a certain magic in being able to pull back a forest and reveal a city where we thought there merely to be monuments or the odd home. It's one of the closest senses one get to truly finding a 'lost city', and boy does that idea catch the average observer

Now to have some light reading of the Science article

 

[eonden]

The different ancient cities inside the Amazon are always an interesting discovery and an eye opener of how society could have been there long ago.

 

[UnderNewOwnership]

I remember reading that some Amazon tribes have (or had, at the time of the research) odd socio-cultural quirks like an aristocratic class and nobiliar titles, despite them being hunter-gatherer societies.
It was hypothesized that those were vestiges from a period when their ancestors had lived in classic city states. These new discoveries seem to confirm that position.

 

[zon]

Crazy that such an obviously massive and important settlement remained completely undiscovered. Makes you wonder how many small ones there are out there. It's sounding more like the Amazon will have been far more densely populated than people have assumed.

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It's not crazy. Rainforests "swallow" buildings at ridicolous speeds compared to other natural enviroments.

 

[Lowrys]

Incredible! Another report from BBC here:

Huge ancient city found in the Amazon

The city was built 2,500 years ago but may have been abandoned after a volcanic eruption.

www.bbc.co.uk