Finding the lost city: Does the Amazon jungle conceal a vanished empire?

Boston Globe ^ | Sunday, February 22, 2009 | David Grann

[SunkenCiv]

Many modern scientists have assumed that no complex civilization could have emerged in so hostile an environment, where the soil is agriculturally poor, mosquitoes transport lethal diseases, and predators lurk amid the forest canopy. The Amazon's brutal conditions have fueled one of the most enduring theories of human development: environmental determinism... Yet in recent years archeologists have begun to find evidence of what Fawcett had always claimed: ancient ruins buried deep in the Amazon, in places ranging from the Bolivian flood plains to the Brazilian forests. These ruins include enormous man-made earth mounds, plazas, geometrically aligned causeways, bridges, elaborately engineered canal systems, and even an apparent astronomical observatory tower made of huge granite rocks... Fawcett also studied the 16th- and 17th-century chronicles of the El Dorado hunters. Even though the conquistadores had not found a golden kingdom, they had reported seeing "cities that glistened in white," with temples, public squares, palisade walls, causeways, and exquisite artifacts... while Fawcett was climbing a desolate mound of earth above the flood plains of the Bolivian Amazon, he noticed something sticking out of the ground. He scooped it into his hand: it was a shard of pottery. He started to scour the soil. Virtually everywhere he scratched, he later wrote, he turned up bits of ancient, brittle pottery. He thought the craftsmanship was as refined as anything from ancient Greece or Rome or China. "Wherever there are 'alturas,' that is high ground above the plains" in the Amazon basin, Fawcett said, "there are artifacts." And that wasn't all: extending between these alturas, there appeared to be some sort of geometrically aligned paths. They looked, he could swear, like "roads" and "causeways."

[ApplegateRanch]

In a word, YES!

Many in fact.

You can find them at the link.

Lost Empires buried in the Amazon

[Little Bill]

Off topic, go away.

[SunkenCiv]

We could ask Helen Thomas...

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks AGR!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Basically it is because they learned it in history class.

Whether it is the classes of today or of yesterday they were far more interested in pushing an ideology then teaching the pure subject matter.

And yes they still teach it in history class today. When you teach that "white" people conquered the world and oppressed all the gentle child like people of color you are saying, white people smart, brown people dumb.

And now I am off on a tangent. :)

[SunkenCiv]

Lots of hits on that one (and the cover is familiar, it may be around here someplace):

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Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill Hardcover Paperback Library Binding Amazon search

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[Monkey Face]

*THPPPPPPPBBBBTTTTTHHHHHH*

(Who is Helen thomas?)

[Monkey Face]

*THPPPPPPPBBBBTTTTTHHHHHH*

(Who is Helen thomas?)

[Little Bill]

That is the one, I loaned my copy to a Libertarian Friend and it went into the public domain, a must read.

[Monkey Face]

Park the Tangent.

Use a Huff, instead.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

But I am Ravenclaw not Hufflepuff!

[Monkey Face]

The Huff is an Antique!
Quite along the lines of the Snit, but with more class.

[Fred Nerks]

An Artificial Landscape-scale Fishery in the Bolivian Amazon

Earthmovers of the Amazon (article from Science by Charles Mann)

Raised field agriculture in the Llanos de Moxos of Bolivia (links, bibliography, etc)

Prehispanic Earthworks of the Baures Region of the Bolivian Amazon

Published articles and book chapters about raised field agriculture (download or on-line)

Clark Erickson's Homepage

[spyone]

True...the ancient greek islands were once covered in forest. Look at them now. In Alexander the Great’s time, lions still lived in Macedonia.

[AmericanVictory]

And are there not accounts of a “white” people seen in the ruins of some ancient cities in the Amazon who shrank from contact with those from out civilization exploring there?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I am hoping this book lives up to the hype.

[SunkenCiv]

You can keep askin’, but I won’t answer any quicker. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

And are there not accounts of a "white" people seen in the ruins of some ancient cities in the Amazon who shrank from contact with those from out civilization exploring there?

Blam?

[blam]

"There was an author, blam might know , that postulated that Malaria and Yellow Fever were imported from Europe and Africa, in my dotage I can’t remember his name."

Sorry, don't remember that.

[blam]

1491

(see post #109)