Posted on 05/26/2022 8:22:33 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Perched in a helicopter some 650 feet up, scientists used light-based remote sensing technology (lidar) to digitally deforest the canopy and identify the ancient ruins of a vast urban settlement around Llanos de Mojos in the Bolivian Amazon that was abandoned some 600 years ago. The new images reveal, in detail, a stronghold of the socially complex Casarabe Culture (500-1400 C.E.) with urban centers boasting monumental platform and pyramid architecture. Raised causeways connected a constellation of suburban-like settlements, which stretched for miles across a landscape that was shaped by a massive water control and distribution system with reservoirs and canals. The site, described this week in Nature, is the most striking discovery to suggest that the Amazon’s rainforest ‘wilderness’ was actually heavily populated, and in places quite urbanized, for many centuries before recorded history of the region began.
Among the 26 sites were two large urban centers, Landivar and Cotoca. They were already known to exist, but the new maps detailed their archaeological complexity and vast size (1.2 and .5 sq miles respectively). Each large center is surrounded by successive rings of moat and rampart fortifications. The sites boast artificial terraces, huge earthen-platform buildings and conical pyramids over 70 feet tall. All these impressive civic and ceremonial buildings are also oriented to the north-northwest... The aerial view with trees stripped away revealed two centers, each anchored by a large network of regional settlements connected by numerous causeways. Those passageways radiate out from the centers like spokes on a wheel, and stretch for several miles. These connect sub-urban settlements, ranging from small settlements closer to the centers to more distant and even smaller sites that may have been used as temporary campsites. Similarly, canals also stretch from the main centers and conn
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
“Clearly SOMETHING huge and disastrous happened to Africa.”
Well, we know there was a recent “desertification” event in Northern Africa because we have cave paintings of tropical plants and wildlife in the middle of the Sahara, and those cave paintings are relatively recent. It looks to me like some refugees from that event headed east and settled in Egypt, but there was already another people settled in Egypt, so that migration brought the two groups into conflict until one emerged victorious and both groups merged into one nation. Then there was another subsequent migration event of Mesopotamians into Egypt, though this probably wasn’t a mass migration, but just an invasion by warriors who ended up settling there and becoming part of the aristocratic classes in Egypt. There are known similar events that happened in other ancient nations, such as when Indo-European Hurrians, probably from the Caucasus area, invaded Anatolia and became a foreign ruling class over the Mittani, who were non-Indo-European.
I was going to say that they needed LIDAR, but looks like they beat me to it :P
The common era (CE) is the dating system for those who don’t want to acknowledge Christ.
I read it as Christian Era. Prolly not what the perps intended.
It’s worth the read. Grann writes about people with obsessions. Fawcett was indeed obsessed!
Exactly. Grann’s book by the same title explores Fawcett’s obsession, and, talks to folks who are studying this area.
It’s a GREAT read.
You can sign up for a free account for the Internet Archive and check it out for 14 days (e-copy only).
It’s worth the effort.
https://archive.org/details/lostcityofztaleo0000gran
“It’s worth the read. Grann writes about people with obsessions. Fawcett was indeed obsessed!”
As was George Mallory, an equally obsessed person. BTW: They finally found his body in 1999, pretty well preserved after all those years.
Thanks BenLurkin.
from the FRchives, the Anna Roosevelt keyword:
We’ve know about this for quite a while.
...not to mention the SUVs that caused that climate change.
Customer Engineer.
Yup.
I know that it may sound pretentious, but I had the idea for using LIDAR for archaeological purposes DECADES before the first scan of the jungles (I believe that I was in HS; I had a fascination with the Incas at the time).
The results speak for themselves.
500 to 2400 CE????
What the hell does CE mean???
_____________________________
It used to be ‘Before Christ (BC) but now wokeness does not allow many of the idiots on the left to use the name of Christ. Kind of like we are forcing the Christian religion on others. So they agreed to change the reference to common era. Of course it still mean before Christ since that is the common era.
Like children playing games
Bookmark
That would be a good one!
I wrote Grann once and asked him about writing about the Franklin expedition. He said he was interested, but, I have never seen any results.
I WAS just reminded he wrote Killers of the Flower Moon. A GREAT Book in itself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
