Highly structured pre-Hispanic settlements with wide streets and long straight streets, plazas and collections of monumental platforms have been found in Ecuador’s Upano Valley in the eastern foothills of the Andes, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The first and largest urban network built and excavated in the Amazon was discovered as a result of more than two decades of research by a team from France, Germany, Ecuador and Puerto Rico.
The research began with field work before remote sensing was used to identify structures beneath the thick tree canopies.
The study’s lead author, Stéphen Rostain, an archaeologist and scientific director of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), described the discovery as “incredible.”
“The remote sensing camera gave us an overview of the area and we could estimate the size of the structures very well,” he told CNN on Friday, adding that it showed a complete network of dirt roads.
Rostain said the first people who lived there 3,000 years ago had small, sparse homes.
But between 500 BC and 300-600 AD, the Kilamope and later Upano cultures began building mounds and erecting their homes on earthen platforms, according to the study authors. These platforms were organized around a low, square plaza.
The platforms were mostly rectangular, although some were circular, and measured on average 20 meters long and 10 meters wide. They were usually built in groups of three or six around a square. The squares often also had a central platform.
Some settlements were protected by moats, while there were checkpoints near some large compounds. This suggests that the settlements were under threat, either from an external threat or from intergroup tensions, the researchers said.
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2024-01-14 12:06:00
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