An ancient lost civilization discovered in the depths of the Amazon

The extremely dense Amazon jungle has revealed about two dozen sites in an area of ​​4,500 square kilometers in present-day Bolivia, having contained many civilizations over several centuries.

The very dense Amazon jungle never ceases to reveal its secrets. Always famous for being hostile and uninhabitable, yet it provided protection for civilizations that we are still discovering today. Thus, thanks to aerial photographs, about two dozen sites were discovered in an area of ​​​​4,500 square kilometers in present-day Bolivia buried under vegetation. This, in any case, is revealed by a new study published in the journal temper nature.

These 26 sites, half of which were previously unknown to archaeologists, are evidence of the orderly life of large settlements and other ancient societies prior to the Spanish conquest.

Archaeologist Heiko Brommers wrote in L. German Archaeological Institute.

A discovery unprecedented in its size

In the study, it concerns above all the Kazarapi civilization, which inhabited the Amazon forests for thousands of years, the extent of which, however, remained completely unknown until then.

at temper natureHeiko Prümers and colleagues describe two large settlements, Cotoca and Landivar, that were the hubs of a regional network of smaller sites connected by still visible bridges that spanned the landscape for several kilometers.

“These two large outposts were already known, but their sheer size and architectural sophistication was only demonstrated by a LIDAR (distance measurement technique that uses the properties of light) survey,” the team of researchers wrote.

This discovery highlights the displacement of several thousand cubic meters of land to build the Kotoka, which is much more than the pre-Inca Tiwanaku civilization, which is often taken as a reference.

We also learned in the study that the Kasrapi people built fences to defend themselves, as well as massive water control systems designed for farming.

This, for archaeologists, says a lot about the population and culture of Kazarapi. All of these data, which are still being studied, refer in particular to a “redefinition of used categories for past and present Amazonian communities”, temper nature at its end.