Friday, December 18, 2020

Ancient Villages in Amazonia

 From Sci News:

Lidar provides a new opportunity to locate and document earthen sites in forested parts of Amazonia characterized by dense vegetation,” said Professor Jose Iriarte, an archaeologist and archaeobotanist at the University of Exeter.

“It can also document the smallest surficial earthen features in the recently opened pasture areas.”

Professor Iriarte and his colleagues used a lidar sensor integrated into an MD 500 helicopter to document architectural features below the forest canopy, revealing a more complex and spatially organised landscape than previously thought. They documented over 35 ancient mound villages and dozens of roads, with many more predicted to still be hidden below the unexplored jungle. The villages were composed of 3 to 32 mounds arranged in a circle, the diameter of which ranged from 40 m to 153 m with the area enclosed by the central plaza ranging from 0.12 to 1.8 ha.

“The circular mound villages are connected across the wider landscape through paired sunken roads with high banks that radiate from the village circle like the marks of a clock or the rays of the Sun,” the researchers explained. “The villages have both minor roads and principal roads, which were deeper and wider with higher banks.”

“Most villages have paired cardinally orientated principal roads, two leaving in a northward direction and two leaving in a southward direction.”

“The straight roads often connect one village to another, creating a network of communities over many kilometers.” (Read more.)


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