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Lost Cities of Amazon; New Stories to be told?

The Amazon was never thought to be cradle for civilisation. Its lush green forests, thick and teeming with wildlife doesn’t suite large scale cities. This very fact remained constant throughout the centuries of European exploration. People setting out to find the El Dorado inside the Amazons mostly never returned. So, for centuries Amazon was never considered to ever have large societies.

What happened to the Casarabe settlements is still unsolved.

Lidar image of the large settlement site Cotoca

The recent discovery of ancient Urban Structures within these forests reveals another story. Buried under the thick canopy of the rainforest. Lies many structures revealed through Lidar scans. These structures are mostly likely Pre-Columbian and dates back to at least 600 years. These buildings are thought to be part of the Casarabe culture and built around 500CE to 1400CE.

Findings in the Bolivian Amazons aren’t the only such structures within the Amazon the predates European colonialism.

Even though there were evidence supporting such civilisations within the Amazon the new findings provide detailed picture of the complex urban centres and fortification they built. These findings could lead to uncovering many such sites buried within the Amazon.

What happened to the Casarabe settlements is still unsolved. The settlements might have disappeared around 1400CE before European. As there are no known European contacts suggesting such societies.

The new findings now create a new way to look at the Amazon, One with cities and large agricultural lands and human activities.

These findings show us another story of Amazon, it would not have looked the kind of untouched forest that it is today. The Amazon became as it is now only in recent times. When these cultures faded away. And paleoclimatic studies suggest that Amazon would in fact have had plenty of savannahs giving access to land to build upon. These climatic changes also suggest the large amount of water storages found in the urban centres.

The findings in the Bolivian Amazons aren’t the only such structures within the Amazon the predates European colonialism. Smaller settlements have been found in Brazil as well suggesting that the Amazon a thousand years ago would have been having a lot of human activity.

All these sites have remained untouched for centuries and hold many mysteries that has to be unfolded. The new findings now create a new way to look at the Amazon, One with cities and large agricultural lands and human activities.

That it is slowly becoming again, for good or bad?

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