Complex society in Western Amazon

Brand new Azteca's neighbor

The highly respected periodical 'The Economist' once wrote about Brazil as indeed the country of the future. But by a recent discovery Brazil is also one significant of the past. Researchers found signals - geometric earthworks - of an unknown pre-Columbian monument-building society in Amazon. Thus, History has to be partly retold, as American peoples before Colombo's arrival seem to be fairly different


By LUAN GALANI (luan.galani@wavemagazine.net)
from Curitiba, BRAZIL


Like a magnet for adventurers, the legend of El Dorado attracted hordes of explorers. It was supposed to be an ancient golden empire of citadels with concealed treasures in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Spanish conquerors risked their lives with the hope of discovering a new important civilization like the Azteca or the Inca. As time passed by, the so sought city of El Dorado became myth. Scientists used to claim that the Amazon was too inhospitable for large human settlements. However, here we are: more than 250 earthwork vestiges of large settlements in the Brazil-Bolivia border were unveiled by satellite surveys.

A once numerous and sophisticated pre-Columbian society that flourished in the Amazon constructed these earthworks of precise geometric plan interconnected by straight roads. It stretches over a region more than 250 km across and the authors suggest that we have so far seen no more than a tenth of it. The study was published in the last issue of Antiquity by anthropologists of two Brazilian Universities from the North and Northeast (Federal University of Pará and Federal University of Acre, respectively) and the Ibero-American Institute of Finland, based in Madrid.

One of the sites has been dated to around AD 1283, although others may date as far back as AD 200 to 300, wrote coauthor Denise Schaan. The earthworks gauge between 90 and 350 meters of diameter and three of depth. But it still remains a mystery what functions the structures served. Ideas range from fortresses to ceremonial centers and homes, the authors say. Researchers esteem that at least 80 people would be necessary to build one single structure.

A version up to now untold

This remarkable discovery adds to evidence that the hinterlands of the Amazon once teemed with complex societies, which were largely wiped out by diseases brought to South America by European colonists in the 15th and 16th centuries and so on. Previous researches had suggested that soils in the Amazon were too poor to support the extensive agriculture needed for such large and permanent settlements. "We found that it is wrong", Schaan said. "We still have a lot of things to discover".

Twentieth-century interpretations of cultural development in the South American lowlands claimed that pre-European Amazonian societies were mainly considered to be primitive egalitarian tribes living in small and impermanent villages in a hostile environment, unable to develop complex socio-political institutions. But now these long held interpretations are upside down as the study proofs exactly the contrary.

Photos by Edison Caetano and Sanna Saunaluoma


(Published: 09.02.2010.)