Amazon and Orinoco river basins are among the least archaeologically explored regions of South America. For both natural and political reasons they were long hardly accessible to researchers and even today their exploration is very limited, which makes discoveries made there even more interesting.

Thanks to the use of modern documentation techniques (e.g. LiDAR photogrammetry) it is possible to locate otherwise invisible traces of human activity under the deep layer of tropical vegetation, as perfectly illustrated by the achievements of the Polish archaeological project in Nakum, Guatemala, led by Prof. Jarosław Źrałka from the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University.

The contemporary studies into human activity in the Amazon region date back to the 1980s and still very little is known on that issue. Yet, it can already be confirmed that the sensational 16th-century travel memoirs of Francisco de Orellana and Lope de Aguirre – the first Europeans to reach these areas - were not very far from truth.  

Today, there is no doubt that Amazon basin has been inhabited since the early Holocene (ca. 10 thousand years ago) and the intensity of human settlement and farming grew very rapidly, as shown by large settlements, comprising even 200-300 houses, vast areas of arable land, water canals, roads, mounds, etc. The results of these human activities include the formation of a thick layer of very fertile anthropogenic soil known as the Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE).

The best known discoveries of such proofs of human activity have so far been made in Bolivia (Llanos de Mojos) and central Brazil (Acre state). The recently published results of research in Upano province (east Ecuador), where remains of at least 2500-year-old settlement, agricultural and communication structures were found, perfectly complement this picture.

With the help of LiDAR technology, 6 thousand rectangular platforms with dimensions of about 20x10 metres and 3 metres in height were revealed. They were arranged in clusters of 3-6 platforms surrounding a square containing another, central platform. What is, however, the most interesting, is the network of straight roads linking them, the longest of which extended 25 km. Some of these routes crossed at right angles. Such an arrangement of road network definitely required much more effort than simply adapting them to the landscape conditions. It should also be noted that some roads were lined with water drainage ditches.

Hence, it turns out that South American jungle was an area of very dynamic cultural growth, inhabited not only by hunters-gatherers, but also by settled communities, some of which may have formed political structures based on chiefdom. Judging by the very thick network of both road and riverine connections, distant settlements maintained intense contacts with one another.

Amazonia, its peoples and natural riches significantly contributed to the development of civilisation across the South American continent, as evidenced by numerous items, plant remains as well as mythical and iconographic motifs found at archaeological sites and in communities in such distant places as the high Andes, Peruvian coast, and Argentinian Pampas.

The very interesting discovery reported by the Ecuadorian website El Universo provides numerous proofs for the indigenous, original growth of Amazonian communities. These studies seem crucial for our understanding of the history of Pre-Columbian South America and are expected to bring about new important discoveries in the near future.

Original text by Dr Michał Wasilewski from the JU Institute of Archaeology is available at nauka.uj.edu.pl