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Over 10,000 years ago, ancient human settlers began the construction of around 4,700 artificial forest islands in ancient Amazonia, according to the results of a recently-published paper. Archaeologists believe that the islands were used for farming, and that they can still be seen to this day.
[...] The team used satellite data to map 6,643 forest islands located in present-day Llanos de Moxos, Bolivia. Of these, 82 were surveyed, samples were taken from 30, and four were excavated.
Sixty-three of the islands were found to harbor dark sediments rich in organic matter including charcoal, burnt earth, animal bones and shells, which are indications of human occupation. It was concluded that they were not existing landscape features, and had instead been constructed completely artificially for the purpose of cultivating food.
Based on their findings, the researchers extrapolated that ancient settlers gradually built around 4,700 islands on which to grow food, with construction starting over 10,000 years ago. These forest islands had an average size of 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres), and were raised 0.5-3m (1.6-9.8 ft) above the savanna in order to remain above the water level during the wet season.
Researchers posit that the area represents another birthplace of agriculture, similar to Meso-America, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and others.
Journal Reference:
Umberto Lombardo, José Iriarte, Lautaro Hilbert et al. Early Holocene crop cultivation and landscape modification in Amazonia, Nature (DOI: doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2162-7)
Source: University of Exeter.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:27AM (1 child)
This reminds me of a scene from The Naked Jungle [wikipedia.org], which I saw years ago on late-night TV. It always made an impression me. There was a line something like, "these people once had a great civilization, but the Amazon swallowed them up", or something like that. Turns out maybe the author had some intuitive sense, or we've sort of known it all along. Overall it wasn't a great movie, but when I saw George Pal credited, that made me want to watch it. Pal produced The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 12 2020, @02:09PM
Change one word, and it's apparently happened multiple times in human pre-history.
"these people once had a great civilization, but the Jungle swallowed them up",
Africa has a legacy of pre-historic civilizations, or at least nations. I've read accounts of Cambodia, and I think Laos having ancient ruins, attributed to past civilizations. It would be cool if there were some central clearing house with information about past civs, huh? Atlantis has it's share of "evidence", among others.
https://newspunch.com/nasa-claim-dozens-of-advanced-civilisations-existed-before-us/ [newspunch.com]
https://www.ancient-code.com/evidence-of-advanced-ancient-civilizations-on-earth-over-100000-years-ago/ [ancient-code.com]
https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/ancient-civilizations/10-oldest-ancient-civilizations-ever-existed/ [ancienthistorylists.com]
I make no claim regarding the veracity of any of these.