Ancient Amazon civilisation laid bare by felled forest

[Adsos Letter]

Source: New Scientist
by Linda Geddes

Signs of what could be a previously unknown ancient civilisation are emerging from beneath the felled trees of the Amazon. Some 260 giant avenues, ditches and enclosures have been spotted from the air in a region straddling Brazil's border with Bolivia.

The traditional view is that before the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th century there were no complex societies in the Amazon basin – in contrast to the Andes further west where the Incas built their cities. Now deforestation, increased air travel and satellite imagery are telling a different story.

"It's never-ending," says Denise Schaan of the Federal University of Pará in Belém, Brazil, who made many of the new discoveries from planes or by examining Google Earth images. "Every week we find new structures." Some of them are square or rectangular, while others form concentric circles or complex geometric figures such as hexagons and octagons connected by avenues or roads. The researchers describe them all as geoglyphs.

Garden villages
Their discovery, in an area of northern Bolivia and western Brazil, follows other recent reports of vast sprawls of interconnected villages known as "garden cities" in north central Brazil, dating from around AD 1400. But the structures unearthed at the garden city sites are not as consistently similar or geometric as the geoglyphs, Schaan says.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427383.800-ancient-amazon-civilisation-laid-bare-by-felled-forest.html

[Triana]

1. I don't care. They need to STOP DEFORESTING THE AMAZON

EVERY SECOND an area the size of a football field is mowed down there. The Amazon rainforest is home to millions of species of plants and animals that do not exist elsewhere.

WE'RE DESTROYING it and this has to STOP.

Are they going to mow the whole goddamned thing down just to find 'ancient civilizations'? If they don't stop this crap - WE will be one of them.

[Delphinus]

3. I agree, Triana.

The rainforest is so important on so many levels. It has to stop.

[timtom]

4. Thank you.

THAT's the overarching issue in climate change! And, it's not just the Amazon, either. All the development in...oh...the U.S., for example, certainly must have impacted the carbon content in the air. And, not in a healthy manner, either.

[dysfunctional press]

5. the way that our country has polluted and raped the earth to provide for our lifestyle...

we really have no right to preach to other countries about how to manage their resources.

sorry. :shrug:

[progressoid]

2. Woo Hoo! Deforestation rules!!

for the impaired: :sarcasm:

[cornermouse]

6. We are and have been doing some major deforestation right here in the

good ole USA for quite some time now.

[UTUSN]

7. Here's one "timber harvester" with his crown:

Manuel Zelaya talks on his mobile phone within the Brazilian embassy while his white cowboy hat is held by a bodyguard, Boris Muños. Photograph: Esteban Felix/AP