Credits: Social Media
Researchers discover ‘sophisticated’ hidden city in the Amazon forest that is over 2500 years old
Archeologists have discovered a huge city in the Amazon rainforest, hidden under the lush vegetation for over 2000 years, boasting “complex urban societies” that paint a completely different image of ancient humans.
The popular opinion that nomads inhabited the forest in small groups is in contrast to what the researchers have revealed in the latest excavation. The people in ancient times are believed to have had a “sophisticated” road network that connected complex urban centers.
A 2500-year-old city has been discovered in Amazon forest
The archaeologist behind the study, Stephen Rostain, completed 25 years of research on the city that was first discovered in the 1970s.
Mapping by laser-sensory technology helped them unravel more details about the settlements that are estimated to have lived in the region between 500 BC and AD 300 to 600.
The researcher described it as a “lost valley of cities,” which is believed to have homed 10,000 people on average and maybe between 15,000 and 30,000 at its peak. Another researcher from the University of Florida, Michael Heckeberg, noted: “This shows a very dense occupation and an extremely complicated society.”
“For the region, its really in a class of its own in terms of how early it is, he added. The road network used to connect different parts of the city is thought to have been “sophisticated”, which would have required an elaborate system of organized labor to be constructed.
“The Incas and Mayans built with stone, but people in Amazonia didnt usually have stone available to build they built with mud. Its still an immense amount of labor,” said a fellow researcher.
Ancient city had ‘urban centers’ and terraces
While you may imagine the Amozonians living in makeshift huts, the relics of the ancient city lying in the Upano Valley of Ecuador prove all your conceptions wrong.
The mapping reveals a “dense system” of urban centers in the foothills of the Andes. In addition to well-planned straight roads, the research found an “anthropized landscape with clusters of monumental platforms, plazas, and streets following a specific pattern intertwined with extensive agricultural drainages and terraces.”
The roads are said to have stretched over tens of kilometers, connecting different parts of the city, which was planned in a way to avoid threats as some ditches that blocked the entrances were found too.
The lead researcher of the study was warned against conducting it because other scientists believed no such ancient groups with knowledge of advanced techniques could have lived in the Amazon. He ignored them all and took a chance, and his efforts finally paid off.
“But I’m very stubborn, so I did it anyway. Now I must admit I am quite happy to have made such a big discovery,” Stephen told the BBC.
