Researchers, for generations, have thought of the Amazon as being a cultural desert and a terrain full of jungle that would be a treacherous place to have contained any civilization more sophisticated than a small nomadic tribe. Despite previous assumptions, before the arrival of Europeans, the Amazon may have been much different, inhabiting millions of humans. Recently, archaeologists have found evidence supporting an ancient civilization densely dispersed in settlements throughout the basin. This shows archaeologists that there was probably a much more advanced and larger society than thought previously. Archaeologist, Denise Schaan from the Federal University of Para in Brazil, has found and mapped out clusters of mysterious land sculptures. These sculptures were dug between 700 and 2,000 years ago. Schaan suspects that the 269 circular and rectangular earthworks scattered over a 15,000-square-mile area were ceremonial platforms. “These earthworks could have only have been built by large, coordinated populations,” says Schaan. Bill Denevan, a geographer from The University of Wisconsin estimated that around 9 million people could have lived in the Amazon during the 15^th century. Brazilian archaeologist, Helena Lima from The Federal University of Amazonas discovered pottery artifacts in addition to the hundreds of carvings of human faces that date back to 3,000 to 7,000 years ago. This suggests that there were a network of villages that were connected across the Amazon. Another archeologist, Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo of the University of Florida had actually found the remnants of different crops including corn in the northeast are of Peru. This indicates that what is now large swamps was once a grassland managed by the native inhabitants.

Information obtained at www.discovermagazine.com and pictures obtained at www.discovermagazine.com and www.wikipedia.org