AN ANCIENT abandoned city that was abandoned in the 18th century has finally been unearthed deep inside the Amazon rainforest.
Located in the modern Brazilian state of Rondônia, the Portuguese settlement was said to have appeared on some maps hundreds of years ago before vanishing.
TV Cenarium/youtubeAerial view of the region that has been discovered in the Amazon rainforest[/caption]
TV Cenarium/youtubeLidar scans have traced out the existence of the lost city[/caption]
AFPAerial view of the Amazon rainforest taken from a plane flying from the city of Manicore to Manaus, Amazonas State, Brazil[/caption]
With the help of Lidar technology and locals from various Indigenous groups, a group of archaeologists managed to trace out the existence of the colony that is now covered in deep forest.
Eduardo Neves, the director of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at the University of São Paulo, said: “It was abandoned, the forest took over, and the stone blocks were removed.
“We were able to identify the layout of the streets of this city, which was also a fascinating discovery.”
It is understood that the Portuguese people established the settlement inside the Amazon rainforest somewhere around the 16th century when explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral conquered the land.
He then established his own administration and began exploiting the natural resources in the region – making it one of the major economic assets of the Portuguese kingdom.
However, soon after Brazil declared its independence under the leadership of Prince Dom Pedro I, the city was reportedly abandoned.
And eventually, it failed to stand the test of time.
Neves and his team are now determined to bring back the long-lost city as part of the Amazônia Revelada project.
The project aims to identify archaeological sites in different parts of the Amazon by combining state-of-the-art technology with the traditional knowledge of forest peoples.
Neves said: “We want to register these archaeological sites to make them part of [our] heritage and create an additional layer of protection for these territories.”
It comes after another ancient city buried near the mountains in Ecuador was found after 2,000 years.
Home to 10,000 people and lasting for about 1,000 years, the mysterious community was complete with platforms, plazas, streets, farms and canals.
Laser-sensor technology revealed the network of earthen mounds and buried roads in the Upano Valley, hidden for centuries under the foothills of the Andes.
Many of the roads were strikingly straight, with workers digging about three metres into the ground and buttressing the trails with piles of soil.
Residential and ceremonial structures were built on almost 6,000 clay mounds, which were flanked by agricultural areas with drainage ditches.
The widest roadways were 33 feet wide and ran for six to 12 miles.
The site was home to at least 10,000 people, and maybe as many as 15,000 or 30,000 at its zenith, according to archaeologist Antoine Dorison, a research co-author at France‘s National Center for Scientific Research.
That is equivalent to the estimated population of Roman-era London, the biggest metropolis in the United Kingdom.
The discovery ends the argument over whether the ancient Amazon was livable and adds to evidence such as pyramids and earthworks discovered during the last 20 years.
The Upano people, estimated to number 30,000, mysteriously vanished between 300 and 600 CE.
Around 200 years later, people related to the Huapula civilization moved into the region.
And by the time Europeans arrived in South America, the once-thriving towns had been mostly buried by the forest.
The network of settlements was detailed in an article published by lead researcher Stephen Rostain and others in Science.
Rostain first noticed earthen mounds in the region about 20 years ago but said at the time he wasn’t sure “how it would all fit together”.