A huge ancient city has been found in the Amazon, hidden for thousands of years by lush vegetation.

The discovery changes what we know about the history of people living in the Amazon.

The houses and plazas in the Upano area in eastern Ecuador were connected by an astounding network of roads and canals.

The area lies in the shadow of a volcano that created rich local soils but also may have led to the destruction of the society.

While we knew about cities in the highlands of South America, like Machu Picchu in Peru, it was believed that people only lived nomadically or in tiny settlements in the Amazon.

 

"This is older than any other site we know in the Amazon. We have a Eurocentric view of civilisation, but this shows we have to change our idea about what is culture and civilisation," says Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, who led the research.

"It changes the way we see Amazonian cultures. Most people picture small groups, probably naked, living in huts and clearing land - this shows ancient people lived in complicated urban societies," says co-author Antoine Dorison.

The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists.

It is difficult to accurately estimate how many people lived there at any one time, but scientists say it is certainly in the 10,000s if not 100,000s.

The archaeologists combined ground excavations with a survey of a 300 sq km (116 sq mile) area using laser sensors flown on a plane that could identify remains of the city beneath the dense plants and trees.

 

This LiDAR technology found 6,000 rectangular platforms measuring about 20m (66 ft) by 10m (33 ft) and 2-3m high.

 

FULL STORY

 

 

So another future tourist attraction to be developed by govt to get hordes of tourists to visit to rake in money for govt.

Edited January 12, 20242 yr by freeworld

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The discovery changes what we know about the history of people living in the Amazon.

 

An additional discovery that is only part of an ongoing revision of the study of the Amazon that has been taking place for decades.  But another interesting find. This from 2009.

 

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By this reasoning, the Amazon of the past must have looked much like the Amazon in recent times. 

But this view began to erode in the 1970s as scholars revisited early European accounts of the region, which talked not of small tribes but of dense populations. As Charles Mann’s best-selling book 1491 has eloquently described, the Americas were heavily populated on the eve of the European landings, and the Amazon was no exception. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lost-cities-of-the-amazon/

. 

 

 

Edited January 12, 20242 yr by John Drake

Most of the Amazonian cities - not to mention their Nth American cousins - died off on the arrival of Europeans from 1492 on, killed off - IN ADVANCE OF THE EUROPEANS' ACTUAL ARRIVAL in the cities - by the European diseases (smallpox inter al) that travelled ahead of them. So all the Europeans saw when they got to the Amazon was empty rainforest and, in the north, empty cityscapes.

6 hours ago, CharlieH said:

The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists.

 

If that's accurate, it would shoot down the "killed by Euro diseases" theory, at least for this location.

5 hours ago, impulse said:

 

If that's accurate, it would shoot down the "killed by Euro diseases" theory, at least for this location.

The Maya case is similar, in that the Classic period ended around 900 AD. In the Maya case, people lived on some sites for hundreds of years afterwards, but with a reduced population in groups not affiliated with the original elite, in that the ceremonial structures were not maintained. There is no definite explanation for the decline of Maya civilzation, but several theories.

7 hours ago, impulse said:

 

If that's accurate, it would shoot down the "killed by Euro diseases" theory, at least for this location.

The implication is that the city was abandoned at the time of the AD 536 global catastrophe.

1 hour ago, placnx said:

The Maya case is similar, in that the Classic period ended around 900 AD. In the Maya case, people lived on some sites for hundreds of years afterwards, but with a reduced population in groups not affiliated with the original elite, in that the ceremonial structures were not maintained. There is no definite explanation for the decline of Maya civilzation, but several theories.

The Maya collapse was contemporaneous with the Toltec collapse. Still don't know what happened.

7 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Most of the Amazonian cities - not to mention their Nth American cousins - died off on the arrival of Europeans from 1492 on, killed off - IN ADVANCE OF THE EUROPEANS' ACTUAL ARRIVAL in the cities - by the European diseases (smallpox inter al) that travelled ahead of them. So all the Europeans saw when they got to the Amazon was empty rainforest and, in the north, empty cityscapes.

Same for the large Native American sites in the US. A few stray Spaniards wandering around spread disease so when later explorers arrived, the sites were deserted.

7 hours ago, ozimoron said:

 

Both Rome and Ankor Wat had almost a million people in ancient times.

Teotihuacan had a large population prior to 536 AD.

 

I lived in a village in central Mexico that had a prior population of 400,000 at the time of the Spanish Conquest. If you dug a couple meters down, you would find ruins of abandoned houses miles from the village center.

9 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

The implication is that the city was abandoned at the time of the AD 536 global catastrophe.

Was that during Trump's first term?

 

But seriously, I love how Europeans (and their descendants) get blamed for every bad thing that ever happened, anywhere and anytime. 

 

Seems like native people were pretty skilled at killing the heck out of each other, and didn't mind a little ethnic cleansing, even genocide.  Long before the white guys arrived.

 

It's not as if sea routes didn't pre-date Chris Columbus.

 

Edited January 13, 20242 yr by impulse

2 hours ago, impulse said:

Was that during Trump's first term?

 

But seriously, I love how Europeans (and their descendants) get blamed for every bad thing that ever happened, anywhere and anytime. 

 

Seems like native people were pretty skilled at killing the heck out of each other, and didn't mind a little ethnic cleansing, even genocide.  Long before the white guys arrived.

 

It's not as if sea routes didn't pre-date Chris Columbus.

 

The global AD 536 catastrophe was caused by a volcano somewhere. It ended Teotihuacan in Mexico, Rome, the Britons in England, and provoked the plague of Justinian.

5 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

The global AD 536 catastrophe was caused by a volcano somewhere. It ended Teotihuacan in Mexico, Rome, the Britons in England, and provoked the plague of Justinian.

 

So apparently one of those advanced cultures was behind on their human sacrifices to appease the Volcano Gods?

 

20 hours ago, impulse said:

 

If that's accurate, it would shoot down the "killed by Euro diseases" theory, at least for this location.

Can please you provide a link to the claims that habitation in this newly discovered city was brought about by diseases from Europe?

2 hours ago, impulse said:

 

But seriously, I love how Europeans (and their descendants) get blamed for every bad thing that ever happened, anywhere and anytime. 

 

Seems like native people were pretty skilled at killing the heck out of each other, and didn't mind a little ethnic cleansing, even genocide.  Long before the white guys arrived.

 

 

Exactly, white people get blamed for absolutely everything. 

 

I reckon all these people who blame whites for everything should go to live on an island without any inventions that were made by white people.

 

They'd be living in the stone age.

4 minutes ago, FruitPudding said:

 

Exactly, white people get blamed for absolutely everything. 

 

I reckon all these people who blame whites for everything should go to live on an island without any inventions that were made by white people.

 

They'd be living in the stone age.

Well if it swings both ways ‘white people wouldn’t be doing much writing, mathematics or growing any food, to name just a few foundations of the world we all live in. 

6 minutes ago, FruitPudding said:

 

Exactly, white people get blamed for absolutely everything. 

 

I reckon all these people who blame whites for everything should go to live on an island without any inventions that were made by white people.

 

They'd be living in the stone age.

 

So, in modern history, whites have not been behind colonialism on a global scale?

as for living in the stone age, i cant say living more simply would be an entirely bad thing. 

7 minutes ago, n00dle said:

 

So, in modern history, whites have not been behind colonialism on a global scale?

as for living in the stone age, i cant say living more simply would be an entirely bad thing. 

Living without all that Christianity crap foist on them can’t be too bad a thing either.

 

One of the contemporaneous justifications for colonialism and one that continues to this day is the argument that westerners were bringing civilization to primitive societies.

 

The existence of already established cities exposes the lie to that justification.

16 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

20 hours ago, impulse said:

If that's accurate, it would shoot down the "killed by Euro diseases" theory, at least for this location.

Can please you provide a link to the claims that habitation in this newly discovered city was brought about by diseases from Europe?

 

This thread's posts from John Drake and mfd101 both discuss the effects of Euro diseases on S. American cultures.  I was pointing out that this location died out long before that.  And, how quickly the discussion turns to the bad white man, even when they had nothing to do with the collapse.  We've been indoctrinated into guilt.  Which keeps the reparation $$$ flowing...

 

22 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Well if it swings both ways ‘white people wouldn’t be doing much writing, mathematics or growing any food, to name just a few foundations of the world we all live in. 

 

I am fascinated as to hear....why??

1 minute ago, FruitPudding said:

 

I am fascinated as to hear....why??

Because writing, mathematics, agriculture are all inventions of people who were not white.

 

 

15 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

This thread's posts from John Drake and mfd101 both discuss the effects of Euro diseases on S. American cultures.  I was pointing out that this location died out long before that.  And, how quickly the discussion turns to the bad white man, even when they had nothing to do with the collapse.  We've been indoctrinated into guilt.  Which keeps the reparation $$$ flowing...

 

‘Indoctrinated into guilt’

 

Or seething grievance?

36 minutes ago, FruitPudding said:

 

Exactly, white people get blamed for absolutely everything. 

 

I reckon all these people who blame whites for everything should go to live on an island without any inventions that were made by white people.

 

They'd be living in the stone age.

Thanks for exposing your massive ignorance. Do you even have a clue what "stone age" signifies?

2 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

‘Indoctrinated into guilt’

 

Or seething grievance?

 

If anyone's still seething over something that happened over 150 years before they were born, they've been indoctrinated into a victim mindset.  Someone's indoctrinating them for their own selfish purpose and is robbing the "victims" of their potential.

I refuse to feel guilty about what happened in the USA when my ancestors were poor dirt farmers in what is now Belarus, and I vehemently reject any claim that I owe anybody any reparations or special treatment for something that happened 50-100 years before my genetic material set foot in the USA.

 

It's very telling that this story is about a settlement that apparently collapsed 1000 years before Columbus and the first serious replies are about how Europeans caused the collapse of so much in S. America.

 

9 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

If anyone's still seething over something that happened over 150 years before they were born, they've been indoctrinated into a victim mindset.  Someone's indoctrinating them for their own selfish purpose and is robbing the "victims" of their potential.

I refuse to feel guilty about what happened in the USA when my ancestors were poor dirt farmers in what is now Belarus, and I vehemently reject any claim that I owe anybody any reparations or special treatment for something that happened 50-100 years before my genetic material set foot in the USA.

 

It's very telling that this story is about a settlement that apparently collapsed 1000 years before Columbus and the first serious replies are about how Europeans caused the collapse of so much in S. America.

 

Oh, this city was the only civilization in S America and after its demise no other civilization or culture existed.

 

Who knew?

1 hour ago, n00dle said:

some people will seek an argument anywhere over anything, whether backed by facts or not.

 

Oh no they won't! 

Might look at John Lloyd Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, from his and Frederick Catherwood's journeys to the region in 1840-41. What's interesting, aside from the documentation of Maya sites, is the written accounts of just how difficult it was to acquire sufficient amounts of water. The descendants of the classical Mayans were still using their ancestors' extensive systems of underground cisterns and water collection. In some cases, during the dry season, people would need to walk 2 to 6 miles to get water. The area was subject to drought. Even as Stephens and Catherwood were traveling through Yucatan, many, many sites and locales were already in the final stages of disintegrating. This was 1841. Systematic surveys of Mayan archeological sites weren't undertaken until the end of the nineteenth century. How much disappeared between 1841 and 1900? And just to return to the original subject, what goes for Mayans in the Yucatan is at least doubly so for the Amazon.  

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