Pyramids and waterways were built in the settlements.
Scientists with the help of laser scanning were able to detect 11 earlier unknown settlements hiding in the Amazon jungle. According to IFLscience, pyramids were found in the settlements and a system of waterways was developed.
In the study, researchers studied six 4,500-square-kilometer sites in the Llanos de Mojos region of the Bolivian Amazon using helicopter-mounted lidar imaging technology. In total, scientists have discovered two new large settlements called Kotoka and Landvir, and 24 small, of which 15 were previously known to exist.
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It is noted that settlements are not just clusters of huts, it seems that they were once quite developed communities with their own ceremonial architecture and complex structure of water resources management, consisting of canals and reservoirs. Platform mounds and cone-shaped pyramids up to 22 meters high were also found in large settlements.
According to researchers, the settlements date back to 500-1400 AD, when the region was inhabited by Kasarabe culture.
The Amazon forests were once thought to be too dense and wild for large pre-Columbian settlements. . But the discoveries of recent years have challenged this idea: it has been found that the rainforest once abounded in a network of large-scale settlements.
Many discoveries have been made thanks to the leader, a technology developed in the 1970s for space exploration. Since then, this visualization system has proven to be an invaluable tool for archaeologists exploring the landscape in search of lost settlements. The leader not only instantly scans large areas, but can also “see through” dense vegetation and find traces of man-made structures that have been lost.
, documenting and reworking assumptions that have existed for decades about the nature of ancient societies, ”said Chris Fisher, an archaeologist and professor of anthropology in Colorado who did not participate in the new study.
Many more discoveries can be made, but there is little time left because they are suffering from climate change and logging. >. Researchers also found a child's mummy and a basket several thousand years old.
