"Researchers found mysterious geometric trenches and other earthworks carved into the landscape as early as a decade ago, but satellites have paved the way for the discovery of over 200 giant structures."
"Writing in the journal Antiquity, the researchers say the the formations stretch for some 250 kilometers (155 miles) across the upper Amazon basin east of the Andes mountains and appear to be of a similar style throughout, suggesting one vast, united civilization that could have totaled some 60,000 inhabitants."
"Researchers also found stone tools, bits of ceramics, and other artifacts buried in mounds along the trenches. So far, the uncovered areas date to between 200 and 1283 A.D., but the team thinks they've seen "no more than a tenth" of the true extent of this archeological wonder. More from an article which appeared Tuesday in the Guardian":
"These revelations are exploding our perceptions of what the Americas really looked liked before the arrival of Christopher Columbus," said David Grann, author of "The Lost City of Z," a book about an attempt in the 1920s to find signs of Amazonian civilizations. "The discoveries are challenging long-held assumptions about the Amazon as a Hobbesian place where only small primitive tribes could ever have existed, and about the limits the environment placed on the rise of early civilizations."
According to Rory Carroll in his article at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/05/amazon-dorado-satellite-discovery
"Spanish conquistadors ventured into the rain-forest seeking fortune, followed over the centuries by others convinced they would find a lost civilization to rival the Aztecs and Incas."
"Some seekers called it El Dorado, others the City of Z. But the jungle swallowed them and nothing was found, prompting the rest of the world to call it a myth. The Amazon was too inhospitable, said 20th century scholars, to permit large human settlements."
"Now, however, the doomed dreamers have been proved right: there was a great civilization."
"Spanning 155 miles, the circles, squares and other geometric shapes form a network of avenues, ditches and enclosures built long before Christopher Columbus set foot in the new world. Some date to as early as 200 AD, others to 1283."
"Scientists who have mapped the earthworks believe there may be another 2,000 structures beneath the jungle canopy, vestiges of vanished societies.
The structures, many of which have been revealed by the clearance of forest for agriculture, point to a "sophisticated pre-Columbian monument-building society", says the journal Antiquity, which has published the research."
"The article adds: "This hitherto unknown people constructed earthworks of precise geometric plan connected by straight orthogonal roads. The 'geoglyph culture' stretches over a region more than 250km across, and exploits both the floodplains and the uplands … we have so far seen no more than a tenth of it."
The structures were created by a network of trenches about 36ft (nearly 11 metres) wide and several feet deep, lined by banks up to 3ft high. Some were ringed by low mounds containing ceramics, charcoal and stone tools. It is thought they were used for fortifications, homes and ceremonies, and could have maintained a population of 60,000 – more people than in many medieval European cities.
The discoveries have demolished ideas that soils in the upper Amazon were too poor to support extensive agriculture, says Denise Schaan, a co-author of the study and anthropologist at the Federal University of Pará, in Belém, Brazil. She told National Geographic: "We found this picture is wrong. And there is a lot more to discover in these places, it's never-ending. Every week we find new structures."
To read more about Eldorado (the City of Z), please go to the following websites:
http://www.crystalinks.com/lostcityofz.html
http://www.geographicus.com/blog/rare-and-antique-maps/el-dorado-lake-parima-patiti-and-the-lost-city-of-z/
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/01/the-city-of-z.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1880630,00.html
Here is a link to a video in which David Grann, talks about this civilization:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_wRFeU8l2I
Here is a link to a video which shows some of the photos of the discovery from a bird's eye view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUjZfoAPcTY
Here is a short documentary about El Dorado I found at Youtube:Thanks to user absalutevalue for posting this video there.
source of images:National Geographic
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