What we know about the vast network of lost cities in Ecuador

Environment – The world’s largest tropical forest remains untouched by civilization. In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, scientists have discovered a vast network of densely populated cities dating back 2,500 years, home to a hitherto unknown agricultural society, according to a study published Friday, Jan. 12, in the prestigious journal Science.

Spread over 1,000 square kilometers in the Upano Valley, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador, the site includes about twenty towns connected by roads.

• 25 years after “Upano”.

Unprecedented urban planning in the Amazon so ancient. “It is not just a village but a whole landscape that is domesticated by man”Stephen Rosten, CNRS research director and first author of the study, explained to AFP.

It has been 25 years since French archaeologists found the first traces of this civilization “remedies” By digging on the ground, and identified several hundred mounds of earth.

In 2015, a company commissioned by the Ecuadorian Heritage Office, Lidar (“Laser Imaging Discovery and Range”.), a small laser remote-sensing machine on a plane, which allows you to walk through the leaves of trees in a dense forest. “By removing the vegetation cover, you can restore the true shape of the land on these hundreds of square kilometers, which was not possible on land”Mentions Stephen Rosten.

The image shows more than 6,000 mounds, rectangular mud platforms that served as foundations to protect houses from wet mud. “ I was not expecting something so spectacular. For the archaeologist, it is a veritable scientific Eldorado”Gives confidence to the researcher.

• Streets on the right “like in New York”

The first platform would have been built between 500 BC and 300 and 600 years later, thus covering the time of the Roman Empire. Other pre-Hispanic villages have been discovered in the Amazon, but more recent, between 500 and 1500 CE. And not so huge.

Even more remarkable: the discovered cities were intersected by large excavated streets, straight and at right angles, “Like in New York”, the archaeologist comments. According to the expert, they linked the villages together for commercial purposes, but also for ceremonial ones.

Some cities have a large central street to bring villagers together, as at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico. Because these were “densely populated”No “several thousand inhabitants” – A statistical study is underway to obtain a more detailed estimate.

• Nomadic “stratified” society

Even mounds 8 to 10 meters high testify not to the construction of houses, but to the construction of communal spaces for rituals or festivals.

The small fields further show that it was an agrarian society which “It took advantage of the slight vacancy to bear fruit”, analyzes the scientist, who works in the archeology of the American laboratory. Searching the houses, he had already discovered numerous domestic remains: seeds, grinding stones, tools, ceramic jars for drinking corn beer….

“We are not in the context of a nomadic society but in the context of a stratified society, possibly with authorities and engineers to find ways.”Summarizes Stephen Rosten.

According to him, this discovery shows “that the Amazon had not only ancient indigenous hunter-gatherers but also a complex urban population”When a “A certain Western arrogance limits the civilization of the jungle people to savagery”. “It’s Time for Amazon to Rethink This Disrespectful Opinion”He believes.

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