The Amazon Once Hosted Urban Civilization

Vast areas of southern amazonia believed to be virgin forests may once have hosted urban communities "surrounded by large walls." This conclusion was reached by anthropologists working in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

There they discovered "networks of walled towns and smaller villages" overgrown by tropical forest and coverling an area of perhaps 11,600 square miles [30,000 sq km]. Some of the towns occupied 150 acres [60 ha].

A report by the University of Florida, whose anthropologists made the discovery, says that the settlements "date from around 1250 to 1650, when European colonists and the diseases they brought likely killed most of their inhabitants."

Posted in: History