Traces of lost city found in Amazon rainforest

Laser technology continues to prove its worth in the Amazon: A team of archaeologists in Ecuador just used the technology to discover thousands of mounds hidden beneath the forest canopy.

The 2,000-year-old site contains approximately 6,000 earthen platforms connected by ancient roads and visible through laser technology called lidar. Although some of the structures were discovered 20 years ago, recent discoveries have revealed the true scale of these ancient cities, according to the Associated Press.The team’s research is publish This week in Science magazine.

Lidar (short for light detection and ranging) has had great success in identifying ancient structures from the air, especially in forested areas or places covered by earth. In 2021, another team of archaeologists Nearly 500 Mesoamerican sites mapped Covering 30,000 square miles of Mexico using lidar, it reveals how residents orient their settlements.In the same year, another team Using this technology to scan TeotihuacanAn ancient Mesoamerican city located northeast of modern Mexico City to better understand how this metropolis was built.If that’s not enough to convince you of Guangda’s remarkable contribution to the field, back in 2018 a team of archaeologists More than 60,000 ancient Mayan structures discoveredincluding a pyramid north of the ancient city of Tikal.

In a recent study, researchers described large platforms, plazas, streets and roads, and agricultural drainage systems in Ecuador’s Upano Valley. The road system extends “tens of kilometers and connects different urban centers, thus forming a regional-scale network,” the researchers wrote. These sites were continuously occupied from around 500 BC to 300-600 AD.

The multi-city network had a population of at least 10,000 people and may have been as many as 30,000 at its peak, study co-author Antoine Dorison, an archaeologist at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, told The Associated Press . These ruins are where the Upano people lived.

It is not surprising that ancient inhabitants created extensive drainage systems.Throughout Central America, pre-Hispanic populations Transform low-lying wetlands For agricultural purposes.

Lidars are also used to analyze modern sites; last year, a satellite company demonstrated at the Geospatial World Forum announced plans Map the Earth in lidar using satellite constellations. It seems that no ancient city will be spared by sensory laser technology.

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