Particle.news
Download on the App Store
4 ARTICLES
·
4w ago

LiDAR Maps Thousands of Buried Amazon Earthworks Built by Aquiry Communities

A University of Helsinki LiDAR study finds more than 400 ceremonial enclosures in a surveyed corridor, revealing large-scale forest management that raises pre‑Columbian population estimates.

Image
Una civilización perdida bajo la selva: científicos hallan más de 400 centros ceremoniales que reescriben el pasado de la Amazonía
Image
Una de las figuras de la civilización perdida del Amazonas.

Overview

  • Researchers used systematic airborne LiDAR to scan roughly 4,500 km² in long flight strips and detected more than 400 monumental earthworks hidden under southwest Amazon forest.
  • The team projects those survey results across an 183,000 km² Aquiry territory and estimates the landscape may contain over 20,000 similar earthworks.
  • Authors estimate the Aquiry network supported about 1.25–3 million people in the early first millennium CE, a figure that challenges older views of a sparsely populated Amazon.
  • Field evidence and the earthworks indicate active landscape management, including cleared fields for maize and manioc, controlled burning, and care for useful trees such as Brazil nut.
  • Key questions remain about language, social identity and why these communities declined around 850–1000 CE, and authors call for targeted excavations and interdisciplinary studies to answer them.