Mysterious Amazonian Civilization Found, Population Skilled Farmers All

KOMPAS.com – Researchers have uncovered the existence of a lost pre-Hispanic civilization in Amazon.

The findings also suggest that the Llanos region of Mojos in the Amazon basin was inhabited by the mysterious Casarabe people between 500 and 1400 AD.

Researchers also proved that civilization in the region was inhabited by far more people than previously thought.

Then, the people who lived there also developed a vast civilization that was able to adapt well to the unique environment in which they lived.

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In fact, previously archaeologists suspected that the poor tropical soil on the Llanos de Mojos plain would not be able to support a large population and sophisticated urban civilization.

As quoted from Live Science, Thursday (26/5/2022) to reveal these findings, researchers used LIDAR, a remote sensing method that scans the earth’s surface using a laser beam of air over the Amazon basin.

It does this by bouncing infrared lasers onto the ground to reveal archaeological structures beneath dense vegetation.

This method can also locate settlements, including roads, reservoirs, canals centered on two very large Casarabe settlements, called Cotoca and Landivar.

“Within an hour’s walk, you can get to other settlements. That’s a sign that this area was very densely populated in pre-Hispanic times,” said Prumers.

The Llanos de Mojos region is a low-lying tropical savanna in the southwest of the Amazon basin. The area has a rainy and dry season every year. Spanish missionaries in the 16th century found only remote communities living there.

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But recent discoveries have finally debunked the idea that the area was sparsely populated, and suggested that settlements had a high degree of density. The Casarabe settlement could even be home to thousands of people. Settlements have also been integrated with roads.

Meanwhile, an unusual feature of the settlement is the discovery of a large infrastructure of canals and reservoirs for water management.

Prumers said the system might be used to control seasonal flooding in the area to increase maize and other crop farming in the area.

According to researchers, the driest months make the region experience no rain at all. Meanwhile, during the rainy season, between November and April, most areas are inundated for months.

The reservoir may also be used to raise fish which will be an important source of protein for the Casarabe people.

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This finding also proves that the Casarabe people were skilled agricultural experts who were able to transform the Amazonian savanna, which experiences seasonal flooding, into a productive landscape.

Furthermore, Michael Heckenberger, an anthropologist at the University of Florida, who was not involved in the study, said that using lidar to reveal the extent of the archaeological record at Llanos de Mojos was a major advance.

“Lidar was able to create a very clear synthetic picture of what the Amazonian urban landscape looks like. This is a truly remarkable achievement,” he said.

These findings were published in Nature.

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