A series of earthen mounds and buried roads in Ecuador were first noticed more than two decades ago by archaeologist Stephane Rosteen. But at the time, he wasn’t sure what he had really discovered.
However, thanks to a recent mapping of the area using laser sensor technology, it was discovered that the territory is part of a densely populated network of settlements and connecting roads that was “hidden” at the very foot of the Andes mountain forest and existed for about 1,000 years, the AP news agency reported.
“It’s a lost urban valley,” said Rostain, who leads the research at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. “It is unbelievable.”
Humans are believed to have inhabited these valley settlements between about 500 BC and 300-600 AD, roughly the same period as the Roman Empire ruled Europe, the researchers concluded.
Built on more than 6,000 hills, residential and ceremonial buildings are surrounded by agricultural fields with drainage canals. The largest roads were about 10 meters wide and stretched 10 to 20 kilometers in length.
Although it’s difficult to estimate the population, the site likely had at least 10,000 residents — and possibly as many as 15,000 or 30,000 at its peak, said archaeologist and study co-author Antoine Dorison.
At that time, the same number of people are said to have lived in Roman-era London, which was the largest city in Great Britain at the time.
“This shows a very dense population and an extremely complex society,” said University of Florida archaeologist Michael Hackenberger, who was not involved in the study. “For the region, it’s really unique for how long it’s been around.”
Archaeologist José Iriarte of the University of Exeter, on the other hand, expressed that the construction of roads and thousands of mounds of earth would have required a complex organized work system.
“The Incas and Mayans built with stone, but the people of the Amazon generally didn’t have access to stone – they built with mud. It’s still a huge amount of work,” Iriarte said.
The Amazon is often thought of as an area where nature is untouched and where only small groups of people live. But recent discoveries have shown just how complex humanity’s past is.
Recently, scientists have also found evidence of advanced rainforest societies in other parts of the Amazon, including Bolivia and Brazil, that existed even before contact with Europe.
“The Amazon has always had an incredible diversity of people and settlements, not just one shared way of life,” Rosteen said. “We’re just now learning more about it.”
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2024-01-14 09:09:08
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