Latin America

CHRISTINA LARSON
,
AP Science Writer
Jan. 11, 2024
Updated: Jan. 11, 2024 1:07 p.m.



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This LIDAR image provided by researchers in January 2024 shows complexes of rectangular platforms arranged around low squares and distributed along wide dug streets at the Kunguints site, Upano Valley in Ecuador. Archeologists have uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest that was home to at least 10,000 farmers around 2,000 years ago, according to a paper published Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, in the journal Science. (Antoine Dorison, Stéphen Rostain via AP)Antoine Dorison, Stéphen Rostain/AP


WASHINGTON (AP) — Archeologists have uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest that was home to at least 10,000 farmers around 2,000 years ago.

A series of earthen mounds and buried roads in Ecuador was first noticed more than two decades ago by archaeologist Stéphen Rostain. But at the time, " I wasn’t sure how it all fit together,” said Rostain, one of the researchers who reported on the finding Thursday in the journal Science.

Recent mapping by laser-sensor technology revealed those sites to be part of a dense network of settlements and connecting roadways, tucked into the forested foothills of the Andes, that lasted about 1,000 years.

“It was a lost valley of cities," said Rostain, who directs investigations at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. “It's incredible.”

The settlements were occupied by the Upano people between around 500 B.C. and 300 to 600 A.D. — a period roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire in Europe, the researchers found.

More:
https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/archeologists-map-lost-cities-in-ecuadorian-18603035.php

(I'll bet the people who lived there didn't know they were living in a lost valley of cities!)