by Clare Watson
May 25, 2022
Introduction:
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/ruins-of-m ... ian-jungle(Science Alert) The sprawling ruins of Amazonian settlements once home to an Indigenous agriculturalist society with a penchant for cosmology have been uncovered in the Bolivian jungle, hidden beneath seemingly impenetrable vegetation.
The 26 sites, roughly half of which were previously unknown to archaeologists, are yet another example of how the Amazon region was home to large, longstanding settlements and complex ancient societies before the Spanish invasion decimated the Americas.
"Our results put to rest arguments that western Amazonia was sparsely populated in pre-Hispanic times" and enrich existing evidence that the Casarabe culture had a "highly integrated, continuous and dense settlement system," write archaeologist Heiko Prümers of the German Archaeological Institute and colleagues in a new study.
Using remote laser scanners mounted on helicopters, the team of mostly European archaeologists scanned six areas in the heartland of the ancient Casarabe culture that developed between AD 500 and 1400 in what is now northern Bolivia.
The sprawling network of settlements they uncovered under dense forest represents a type of low-density urbanism, the first of this kind found in tropical lowlands of South America, featuring numerous elaborate ceremonial constructions including stepped platforms and U-shaped mounds, all orientated to the north-northwest.