Laser mapping reveals oldest Amazonian cities, built 2500 years ago (2024)

https://www.science.org/content/article/laser-mapping-reveals-oldest-amazonian-cities-built-2500-years-ago

by indus • 2 years ago

178 97 2 years ago

ge96• 2 years ago

Everytime I see these I think of lost gold.

gonzo412• 2 years ago

Every time i see these I think about Spanish explorers who brought small pox over and caused these cities to collapse, only to return to Spain telling stories of jungle cities. Only to have the fleets turn up to dense jungle years later and fine nothing.

But yeah, I also think about lost treasure and Indian Jones a lot with these stories.

desdenova• 2 years ago

Some of those ancient cities disappeared a lot earlier than Spain even existed, though.

People likely abandoned them for some unknown reason and moved to other locations, where they'd eventually get wiped out by the Spanish.

coffeecantcode2• 2 years ago

There’s proven to be massive amounts of rare earth metals used by the indigenous populations in that area at that time, so it’s only natural to imagine that finding “lost” or abandoned cities from around that time has the potential to uncover large amounts of rare metals as well, potentially even cities that explain the stories told of cities filled with gold. The original comment didn’t need a history lesson on the Spanish conquests.

Replies like yours belong on Reddit, what an insufferable outlook on life and history.

tenpies• 2 years ago

I think you are referencing La aventura del Amazonas by Dominican monk Gaspar de Carvajal.

He was one of the survivors of the first European expedition through the Amazon and provides the only account we have of something resembling the pre-European Amazon. He talks about large cities with tall structures, roadworks, and very elaborate societies - nothing compared to our common notion of the Amazonian people.

His account was largely dismissed because it was never replicated, but those who believe it to be accurate theorize that this first Expedition unintentionally caused a population collapse by introducing European diseases. You can imagine that by the time other expeditions were organized, it was a completely different place and the jungle would have easily overgrown any abandoned cities.

Good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_de_Carvajal#The_Relació...

trymas• 2 years ago

Needs a date in the title - this was posted a number of times here when it was published.

trkaky• 2 years ago

http://benedante.blogspot.com/2024/01/kunguints-sangay-and-w...

ricardobeat2• 2 years ago

The previous common-sense belief was that the Amazon was never densely populated and had always been exactly like it is today, a dense forest with primitive tribes scattered hundreds of km apart.

Twenty years ago, brazilian researchers who would mention this theory were considered a bit lunatic, at the “elvis isn’t dead” or “the US reads all the world’s email” level of conspiracy theories.

So playing down these discoveries with discussions of urban density or cities vs villages is pointless, the important finding is that there was some form of civilization there at all.

tempodox2• 2 years ago

Agreed, but:

“the US reads all the world’s email” level of conspiracy theories

Never say never.

rockskon• 2 years ago

Read, parse for keywords to take action against - what's the difference?

nico6• 2 years ago

Twenty years ago, brazilian researchers who would mention this theory were considered a bit lunatic

You are right. However, not only Brazilian researchers, an not just 20 years ago

Check out the movie "The Lost City of Z" or the story of Percy Fawcett

TulliusCicero• 2 years ago

How do the LIDARs work for this kind of thing? I always imagined that the light used wouldn't be able to penetrate objects that are opaque in the visible light spectrum.

defrost2• 2 years ago

If sunlight can reach the forest floor then so can LIDAR.

An airframe with a LIDAR device scatter shots a medium angle "spotlight" of pulses at high frequency downwards within an arc area of angles (straight down, a bit to the left, a bit to the right, a bit forward, etc.)

Of the tens of thousands of 'RAW' data points many reflect from top canopy leaf cover, many penetrate further, a lesser number reach the ground.

All the raw points are pipeline processed and the floor() of penetration is extracted from the fuzzy cloud that represents the canopy as a whole.

Ancient banks, levels, roads, et al show up where not eroded as per the image in the article.

roughly2• 2 years ago

Even when eroded, the presence of straight lines in the eroded remains has typically been used to identify human-made structures.

naikrovek• 2 years ago

Why do tree trunks not show up?

sampo2• 2 years ago

Here is a fisheye photo from the bottom of a rainforest. As you can see, some spots of sky are visible from the bottom. When you fly above the forest and LIDAR is looking down, similarly at some spots the LIDAR laser beams are able to hit all the way to the bottom at some spots through the canopy.

It's not a big fraction, but some of the laser beams are hitting the ground, and after data processing you filter them out and they five you the ground topography profile.

https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/972412/view/rainforest-ca...

Here is a side view that shows how the point cloud profile can look like. This is not from a rainforest but some other forest.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/LiDAR-point-cloud-profil...

tempodox2• 2 years ago

(Jan 2024)

ryleyrandall225• 2 years ago

The Book of Mormon has made this claim for years

jmarchello• 2 years ago

Every time I see news about cities discovered in south america I look to see if the dates line up with the Nephite/Lamanite civilizations of the Book of Mormon (roughly 600 BC to 400 AD). This is the closest yet that I've seen. I'm eager to see what they discover in the coming years about their culture and government. Will we find traces of their Judge-based government? Signs that they worshiped Christ and practiced Jewish rituals? It will be interesting to watch this investigation unfold.

krapp• 2 years ago

Will we find traces of their Judge-based government? Signs that they worshiped Christ and practiced Jewish rituals?

No.

neaden• 2 years ago

There is absolutely nothing being found here that is consistent with the Book of Mormon besides very general things like people lived there.

ryleyrandall225• 2 years ago

Correct. But for a long time people claimed no body even lived there.

But I agree believing in a book like the Book of Mormon because of some random article would be a bad idea

austin-cheney4• 2 years ago

In all fairness the science at this point also makes no further claims.

p_j_w2• 2 years ago

That there were cities on the American continent 2500 years ago? Is this supposed to vindicate the Book of Mormon as somehow being truthful?

ryleyrandall225• 2 years ago

No. Believing in a religious text because of some archeological evidence would be like doing math through prayer.

But I do find it at least a bit ironic that one of the critiques of the book I have seen most commonly has been "If there were so many people, where were all the cities?"

austin-cheney4• 2 years ago

There are a couple of things here to prop up your comment:

* The BOM mentions multiple disconnected societies that go way way back and over simplified them with the label Jaredites.

* That over simplification of the Jaredites is present at the beginning of the Bible’s Genesis too when Able was cast out and went to one of two neighboring cities. That indicates others outside the faith existed in the locality of the faith but were largely ignored, perhaps a perspective thing. These weren’t meant to be history books.

* The BOM itself is a self described radically abridged work. The book describes at one point a small library worth of religious texts, social history, and likely a variety of secular things that people find more practical day to day. These works were lost during a social collapse. The BOM is a tiny portable collection of religious works taken and compiled by a guy named Mormon and carried by his son Moroni. The word portable there is debatable because the book was made of gold and gold is ridiculously heavy, but nonetheless the book describes being hand carried some distance.

mistrial92• 2 years ago

made of gold

.. could be a poetic term, even though many take it literally.

ryleyrandall225• 2 years ago

Yeah, I believe the theory that other people were present.

But I will add a few comments for anyone not familiar with the Book of Mormon who is reading this.

- The goal of the Book is to persuade the reader that Jesus is the Christ, the savior of the world. To that end, the authors make a point to say that they are going to leave out a lot of things they could have added so as to focus only on those things that would be of the greatest spiritual worth to us today. Given that, the only real way to know if it is true is to read it, ponder in your heart the message it contains, and then to ask God if it is true. There is a promise in the introduction that if you will do that sincerely, you will know it’s true by the power of the Holy Ghost. I believe in Jesus Christ and in the Book of Mormon because I have followed that exact process.

- Any discussion here about archeological/literary evidence is at best interesting. Even if the Book of Mormon provided incredibly detailed maps of exactly where each city was located, that would not be reason to believe.

- In looking for evidence, you can find lots of things on both sides that seem to either prove it or disprove it. I fundamentally believe this was by design so that the only way we could know would be to read it and sincerely pray. This is different from saying you should believe it because “trust me bro”. You can know 100% independent of anyone else. I just believe God in his wisdom designed the Book so that the reader would want and need an experience with God before they could fully move on from it.

- Once you believe, I have found the incredible amount of supporting evidence for the book to be encouraging, even if it’s not what the foundation of my belief is built on

- One of the reasons pinpointing exactly where the Book Of Mormon took place is so difficult is because the last writer in the book, Moroni, wandered around for newly 40 years. So it’s hard to know exactly how much ground he covered.

- I find it really interesting that it seems the best archeological evidence comes from Lehi’s journey out of Jerusalem (Nahom, valley near the Red Sea, land bountiful) rather than in the Americas

holmesworcester• 2 years ago

My favorite discovery about Amazon civilization is that the incidence of human-edible fruit trees is much higher in any area near navigable water. They were modifying the forest to be more supportive of humans.

e402• 2 years ago

Where did you read this? I’ve read in multiple places that the jungle there is quite inhospitable to humans because there is little easily accessible food. The source that comes to mind is the book The Lost City of Z.

dbspin2• 2 years ago

There's now a consensus of evidence that large areas of the Amazon were planted and cultivated. Bear in mind this an enormous area, and multiple civilisations would have been active simultaneously over thousands of years.

Two thousand years of garden urbanism in the Upper Amazon https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.adi6317

Early Holocene crop cultivation and landscape modification in Amazonia https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2162-7.epdf

hosh5• 2 years ago

That didn’t just happen in the Amazon. The Pacific Northwest had something like that. My understanding is that the Eastern American forests were curated like that too, before it was cut down.

I have heard of an oasis in North Africa that was curated this way, and it still survived despite being abandoned by humans.

The modern version of this is called a perennial food forest.

morkalork• 2 years ago

It happens unintentionally too, if you've ever been to a state park in North America and seen an apple tree off of a trail, it's because someone once threw away an apple core.

zackmorris2• 2 years ago

Permaculture is another word for it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

The city where I live in the PNW has had a huge influx of immigrants from red and blue states who either don't respect the dignity of nonhuman life or want to gentrify communities to their liking. It seems like the first thing they do when they get here is cut down the biggest tree(s) in their yard to live out their pioneer fantasies. I'd say we've lost around 25 trees 75 years or older in just my immediate neighborhood. Then they plant ornamental pears and similar that smell like rotten garbage/death/sex.

Heaven forbid they plant a plumb, walnut or anything they have to (gasp) clean up after. Bumblebees, butterflies and small birds have all but disappeared compared to when we moved in around 2010.

With housing prices going from $100,000 to $500,000 since 2000, while wages haven't even doubled, I'm starting to not recognize this place anymore. It's heartbreaking because it didn't have to be this way. It's not a supply and demand problem, it's a cultural issue. What we value as a society, what we prioritize, how we fund institutions for checks and balances against predatory private equity firms that can't be stopped by the private sector, etc.

cco• 2 years ago

In Hell's Canyon Oregon, there were mining camps up and down it and you still see a ton of fruit trees dotting the canyon because of it. Many are intentional, by homes, rows etc, but sometimes you see the odd copse of fruit trees off by itself and well, that's probably where the outhouse as ;)

Only about 100-150 years old, but given how well they've done over that time and how popular they are with the wildlife, I'd bet they stick around.

PittleyDunkin5• 2 years ago

They were modifying the forest to be more supportive of humans.

My understanding is that the rainforest as we know it exists where it does in part because humans spent such effort cultivating edible plants in the area. Many of the most edible crops are not native to the regions in which they now grow, there's not much evidence of ancient-grown forest before ~5kya, and there's good evidence of burn-based plant and soil management.

madihaa• 2 years ago

So amazing that we can see this without even excavating it all.

globalise83• 2 years ago

Amazing how many areas of humanities, physical sciences and informatics and engineering were required to achieve this result. Showcases the range and depth of human knowledge perfectly.

nico6• 2 years ago

Just finished watching "Ancient Apocalypse" on Netflix. They go over this kind of discovery

It's quite speculative, but also really fascinating. Even if what they claim is not completely right, it definitely shows how the current accepted understanding of the history of the Americas needs an overhaul and a lot more research

PS: if you like this stuff, also check out the movie "The Lost City of Z"

e402• 2 years ago

The Lost City of Z, the book, was fascinating. Highly recommended. Didn’t see the movie.

xdennis• 2 years ago

I don't know if you're aware, but Ancient Apocalypse is pseudo science.

vdupras3• 2 years ago

Yeah, I'm hesitant about this.

One the one hand, experts pile up pretty hard on this series and on M. Hancock. Maybe deservedly, I don't know.

But I'm still sour about COVID where experts piled up pretty hard on the lab leak theory. When early on, experts were telling us that science said that masks were ineffective. They were adamant.

Here, the very insistence of those experts, the aggressive tone of the wikipedia page give me an air of deja vu.

nico6• 2 years ago

I know it has that reputation. But besides people saying stuff like your comment, I haven’t seen any specifics about exactly what’s wrong

Would you care to elaborate? Have you seen the show? Could you point to the things that are wrong and why?

Genuinely curious and wanting to learn

p_j_w2• 2 years ago

Even if what they claim is not completely right

It seems even this is not the case and that the show is just completely wrong.

nico6• 2 years ago

The show seemed very convincing, not in the speculative theories about an ancient precursor civilization necessarily, but definitely in some of the findings they show

Do you have any resources you could share that debunk the specific things they show? Like the rock paintings they dated to 10k years ago, or some of the other digs that were dated as 20-25k years old?

Are you saying it is all made up? Or just some of it?

thinkyfish• 2 years ago

You should check out the Miniminuteman series on ancient apocalypse, its pretty interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A

itronitron• 2 years ago

"Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen

https://web.archive.org/web/20200329225058/http://sundown.to...

sampo2• 2 years ago

check out the movie "The Lost City of Z"

And the 2005 Charles C. Mann book "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus".

nico6• 2 years ago

Thank you. Looks like a fascinating read

I remember seeing some discussions about it and related topics here on HN a few years ago

roughly2• 2 years ago

That book is really an incredible eye-opening read, I strongly recommend it.

Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything spends quite a bit of time with complex societies in the Americas as well, and is certainly worth a read as well.

JFingleton• 2 years ago

Hancock is great at showing civilizations that I would have never heard of if it wasn't for his "journalism" (that's he's self-appointed title). He's a good communicator and I feel like I learn at lot from his Netflix shows.

However the whole "forgotten civilization" AKA lost city of Atlantis, just seems too far fetched and forced into the various episodes. That part of it makes for good entertainment at least.

In general, I'm a supporter of his work and look forward to further episodes.

mikhailfranco• 2 years ago

He was a journalist for The Economist in his youth.

sylware• 2 years ago

javascript-walled

Bengalilol• 2 years ago

Not the article per se, but the supplementary materials <https://www.science.org/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.112...>

Laser mapping reveals oldest Amazonian cities, built 2500 years ago (2024)

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