LLANOS DE MOJOS, BOLIVIA
For centuries, legends have told of ancient cities lost in the Amazon rainforest, luring explorers and treasure seekers. Now, massive urban landscapes have been uncovered – using helicopters kitted out with the remote sensing technology LIDAR.
Hidden among the dense vegetation, a number of remarkable settlements thought to have belonged to the Casarabe Culture (AD 500 to 1400) in the Llanos de Mojos savanna forest have been digitally deforested.
The one shown here was abandoned around 600 years ago. It’s about 500m long and made up of stepped platforms (dark green) upon which lie rectangular and U-shaped mounds (yellow/orange) and a conical pyramid around 200m tall (red). It’s one settlement among a network that spans several kilometres.
This discovery sheds new light on the history of the Amazon basin. What was thought to be jungle wilderness turns out to have been urbanised, with a high level of sociopolitical organisation long before Western explorers arrived.