How the β€œlost cities” of the Amazon were finally found



And why they were so hard to see

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The Amazon has always been one of the most mysterious places on earth.

When European colonizers arrived in the 16th century, they were captivated by rumors of a golden city, hidden somewhere in the rainforest. Their search for β€œEl Dorado” lasted more than a century, but only resulted in disaster, death, and further conquest of the indigenous people there.

Experts thereafter looked at the Amazon and saw only a desolate jungle; too harsh for extensive agriculture and therefore sparsely populated. They believed that it had always been this way.

Until recently.

Beginning in the late 20th century, archaeologists began looking more closely at the forest floor. Working with the indigenous people who still remained there, they excavated long ditches and mounds. After mapping them, they could see that these were the markings of large settlements; walls, moats, plazas, and roads that connected even more settlements. And they were all over the Amazon.

Further reading:

The Lost City of Z, David Grann
Exploration Fawcett: Journey to the Lost City of Z, Percy Fawcett

The works of Michael Heckenberger; https://anthro.ufl.edu/2013/09/29/heckenberger/

Lidar reveals pre-Hispanic low-density urbanism in the Bolivian Amazon https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04780-4

The geoglyph sites of Acre, Brazil: 10 000-year-old land-use practices and climate change in Amazonia https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/geoglyph-sites-of-acre-brazil-10-000yearold-landuse-practices-and-climate-change-in-amazonia/6E74670EB776FB3DE3EE426A87847C33

Predicting pre-Columbian anthropogenic soils in Amazonia https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.2475

The Lore of Lost Cities – Imagining The Lost City Of Z https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidanderson/2019/04/30/the-lore-of-lost-cities-imagining-the-lost-city-of-z/?sh=2114a4fc4862

Once Hidden by Forest, Carvings in Land Attest to Amazon’s Lost World
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/world/americas/land-carvings-attest-to-amazons-lost-world.html

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50 thoughts on “How the β€œlost cities” of the Amazon were finally found”

  1. Recent LIDAR scans have shown huge cities a vast network of roads connecting all of them. It wasn't thousands but millions of people who inhabited these. The jungle just grew over everything hiding all traces.

    Reply
  2. The think with Native American structures is that it was made with natural items. Once abandon the land just took it back. I believe the Americas were complete covered with cities and tribes. I 100% believe that the Europeans brought three plagues to the Natives. One that came at first contact (the entire Native American social structure was destroyed here), the second contact in 1500 of the Spanish and Aztecs, and the final contact of the North American colonies in 1600. You've seen what Covid did to the world. Now imagine losing 90% of your population. That would complete undermine the ENTIRE complex social structure. What the Spanish found in the Mexico with the Aztec's were basically the post-apocalypse world that had recovered only to get destroyed again. And what the colonist found in North American was post-apocalypse world that grew from the first post-apocalypse. What the colonist saw was a VERY small fraction of what the Native Americans power was.

    Reply
  3. Had to turn it off when you suggested: "the more racist theories are…" πŸ™„πŸ™„πŸ™„πŸ€¦πŸΎβ€β™‚οΈπŸ€¦πŸΎβ€β™‚οΈπŸ€¦πŸΎβ€β™‚οΈ

    Reply
  4. Just curious how they know it was small pox that whipped out their civilization. Or was that part just a hypothesis cause I've seen many say it was small pox. Not trying to call you like your the one guy saying that. Honestly curious about that part of the discovery.

    Reply
  5. The Atoltecayotl was civilization that ran from Canada to the Amazon … this continent was greater than Europe. There was a genocide our ancestors and prophets were killed to create a new world. Good video πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘

    Reply

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