Hidden below several layers of rich Amazonian vegetation, age-old soil, and Bolivian earth, lies an interconnected range of complex societies, villages, towns, and much more, highlighting ever more proof of a late Pre-Columbian urban environment existing alongside the early era of the region. Initiating expeditions in early 2019, a group of archeologists led by the German Archeological Institute's Heiko Prümers underwent various flyovers of the Bolivian rainforest, excavating said findings via the use of sophisticated LIDAR coupled with digital recreations of the region.
Prümers relayed his insightful discoveries in a paper published in Nature, which underscores the ways in which he and his team went about mapping 26 different areas, including Landivar and Cotoca, with a helicopter and a laser, then later erasing all of the vegetation in order to pinpoint below-earth topographical discoveries, which seemingly were aplenty. The author notes similar discoveries made in such parts of the world as Southeast Asia, Central America, and Sri Lanka, yet this is the first of its kind for the possibility of pre-Hispanic low-density urbanism within the Amazonia region.
According to Prümers' report, these interconnected societies belonged to an ancient culture known as the Casarabe, which purportedly existed around AD 500 to AD 1400 within what is called the Llanos de Majos savannah-forest mosaic. The archeologist notes that two major sites were discovered existing within "a dense four-tiered settlement system" spanning roughly 4,500 km2, "with one of the large settlement sites controlling an area of approximately 500 km2."
Related Article: Check Out NASA Earth Observatory's Best Images for May 2022
Although similar findings have been unearthed in other parts of the rainforest, namely the Brazilian and Venezuelan regions, the discovery made by Prümers and his team is, as one of the crew wrote, "mind-blowing." Yet another archaeologist of the Brazilian Amazon, who was not involved in this specific project, Michael Heckenberger, explains, "But this, in my opinion, is the clearest example of low-density urbanism in the Amazonia."
The belief was strong in the fact that the Amazon could not possibly allow for such large open civilizations to exist in a hospitable manner, a popular 20th-century stance that even still holds strong today to some researchers, despite the evidence leaning otherwise. But the proof is all there, shown in full via Prümers and his team, who describe their discoveries as absolutes in "Amazonian urbanism."
The team showcases within the report vast swaths of settlements scattered around much larger, denser ones, all are coalescing via age-old highways. The settlements likewise feature religious epitaphs, like pyramids and monumental platforms situated within the larger sites on the map. The Casarabe civilization even utilized sophisticated agriculture methods of the time, including the use of reservoirs and canals in their daily needs.
"The architectural layout of large settlement sites of the Casarabe culture indicates that the inhabitants of this region created a new social and public landscape through monumentality," the paper reads. "We propose that the Casarabe-culture settlement system is a singular form of tropical agrarian low-density urbanism-to our knowledge, the first known case for the entire tropical lowlands of South America."
The two significant areas uncovered even boasted some neat defensive structures, such as massive ramparts and moats blocking the way of potential intruders. In addition, the layout of the interconnected civilization itself highlights the ingenuity in the Casarabe's architectural prowess, with one such canonical pyramid measuring approximately 70 feet in height, all of which coming together to form a "U" shape with the surrounding buildings, pointing to atypical "cosmological world view," according to the report.
