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Amazon rainforests have intrigued scientists for decades. (File Photo)
The rainforests of Amazon are one of the most intriguing places on the planet. It not only holds elaborate ecosystems, but many lost cities, which experts have been searching for since centuries.
Among them is El Dorado, a supposed lost city of gold, for which many Spanish explorers embarked on fruitless treks into the rainforests located in South America.
But now, using a popular laser technology Lidar, scientists have discovered that ancient cities really did exist in the Amazon. The lasers were beamed from helicopters perched more than 600 feet above the Amazon forests, which according to Nature, revealed that ‘wilderness’ of Amazon’s rainforest was heavily populated.
“Here we present lidar data of sites belonging to the Casarabe culture (around AD 500 to AD 1400) in the Llanos de Mojos savannah, southwest Amazonia,” the article said.
“The Casarabe culture area, as far as known today, spans approximately 4,500 square km, with one of the large settlement sites controlling an area of approximately 500 square km,” it further said.
Researchers have hailed the discovery, claiming it shows an early ‘urbanism’ created and managed by indigenous populations for thousands of years.
“We long suspected that the most complex pre-Columbian societies in the whole basin developed in this part of the Bolivian Amazon, but evidence is concealed under the forest canopy and is hard to visit in person,” José Iriarte from the University of Exeter was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.
“Our Lidar system has revealed built terraces, straight causeways, enclosures with checkpoints, and water reservoirs,” he added.
The lasers have also revealed a network of canals connecting reservoirs and lakes with various sites.
Previous research in the area had revealed hundreds of isolated sites across more than 1,700 square miles of the Llano de Mojos region.
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