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Laser mapping reveals oldest Amazonian cities, built 2500 years ago (2024)
- ge96 2y agoEverytime I see these I think of lost gold.
- gonzo41 2y agoEvery 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 2y agoSome 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.
- coffeecantcode 2y agoThere’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.
- coffeecantcode 2y agoI woke up cranky
- tenpies 2y agoI 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_Relación_and_Carvajal's_mark_on_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_de_Carvajal#The_Relació...
- gonzo41 2y agoThis is what a meant yes. I just couldn't find the reference. Thank you.
- trymas 2y agoNeeds a date in the title - this was posted a number of times here when it was published.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- trkaky 2y agohttp://benedante.blogspot.com/2024/01/kunguints-sangay-and-what-constitutes.html http://benedante.blogspot.com/2024/01/kunguints-sangay-and-w...
- ricardobeat 2y agoThe 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.
- tempodox 2y agoAgreed, but: > “the US reads all the world’s email” level of conspiracy theories Never say never.
- alexey-salmin 2y agoPerhaps the parent comment is alluding to Elvis actually being not dead
- lazide 2y agoHe just went home (/s)
- rockskon 2y agoRead, parse for keywords to take action against - what's the difference?
- ricardobeat 2y agoThe article makes its main point to dispute the “City” characterization and how this is “overblown”. I can only assume trkaky posted in the same spirit of discrediting the news, which I find worth “taking action” against. It might be old news for people in the field, and not reported faithfully (as usual), but what’s the purpose of raining down on one of the most interesting archeological discoveries in the Americas?
- TulliusCicero 2y agoHow 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.
- defrost 2y agoIf 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.
- naikrovek 2y agoWhy do tree trunks not show up?
- defrost 2y agoStanding or fallen? .. and who says that fallen logs don't show up? Bear in mind that the final display is a processed data product with any number of artefacts smoothed, filtered, or cut away by a data processor.
- roughly 2y agoEven when eroded, the presence of straight lines in the eroded remains has typically been used to identify human-made structures.
- sampo 2y agoHere 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-canopy-viewed-though-circular-fisheye-lens 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-profile-in-which-a-is-the-3D-point-cloud-in-the-research-area-and_fig3_372932889 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/LiDAR-point-cloud-profil...
- tempodox 2y ago(Jan 2024)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ryleyrandall22 2y agoThe Book of Mormon has made this claim for years
- jmarchello 2y agoEvery 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 2y ago>Will we find traces of their Judge-based government? Signs that they worshiped Christ and practiced Jewish rituals? No.
- dmvdoug 2y agoI began to read this thread just for the horror-show-train-wreck voyeurism of crazy. But your simple riposte made me laugh, so, gold star, you.
- mistrial9 2y agoto me it seems notable that the conversation turns into comparisons of early Western things.. because of course, it is very unlikely that people on this forum have very much reference of any kind to these very recent science facts. "Pre-columbian art" has been a stable of artistic and intellectual circles for long time.. it is easier to look at one stone figure and wonder
- neaden 2y agoThere is absolutely nothing being found here that is consistent with the Book of Mormon besides very general things like people lived there.
- holmesworcester 2y agoMy 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.
- e40 2y agoWhere 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.
- dbspin 2y agoThere'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 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 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2162-7.epdf
- mrintegrity 2y agoyou mean "large" relative to human populations or large relative to the entire Amazon rain forest? Your sources indicate that there was cultivation widespread around the amazon but not that the /entire/ amazon is as it is due to cultivation. Maybe i misinterpret the intended message of your comment.
- dbspin 2y agoI meant that the Amazon basin and Amazonia are enormous geographic regions. It's highly unlikely that the rainforest itself is the result of cultivation. It does seem to be proven at this point that wide areas were cultivated multiple times in distinct eras of human habitation.
- madihaa 2y agoSo amazing that we can see this without even excavating it all.
- globalise83 2y agoAmazing 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.
- nico 2y agoJust 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"
- e40 2y agoThe Lost City of Z, the book, was fascinating. Highly recommended. Didn’t see the movie.
- xdennis 2y agoI don't know if you're aware, but Ancient Apocalypse is pseudo science.
- vdupras 2y agoYeah, 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.
- whatwhaaaaat 2y agoThe reality of the modern world cannot be explained by the history we are told.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago? How do you figure? The idea of "fully explaining" the modern world seems a ridiculous concept but it's not like we have alternatives to the concept of looking to the past in a methodical manner.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sylware 2y agojavascript-walled
- Bengalilol 2y agoNot the article per se, but the supplementary materials <https://www.science.org/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1126%2Fscience.adi6317&file=science.adi6317_sm.pdf https://www.science.org/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.112...>