Latin America

Judi Lynn

(160,601 posts) Thu Sep 19, 2013, 11:20 PM Sep 2013

Finnish archaeologist digs up ancient civilization in Brazil

Finnish archaeologist digs up ancient civilization in Brazil
Article created on Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Archaeologist Martti Pärssinen has made sensational finds of an ancient civilisation in the Amazonian area. The summer’s digs in Brazil have unearthed unique artefacts, including entirely new forms of ceramics.

The clearing of the Amazon rainforest has revealed mysterious patterns in the earth. The large-scale patterns are best visible from the air, where Finnish archaeologist Martti Pärssinen takes pictures of them.

The geometrical patterns have been made with earth mounds and moats. Many of them are huge, with sides measuring up to a few hundred metres. Over 300 such structures have been discovered in the Brazilian state of Acre alone.

The construction feat involved can be compared to that achieved by those that built the pyramids in Egypt.

Professor Pärssinen points out that people here must have expended as much energy as the workers in Egypt, shaping the earth into vast motes and mounds, in complex, multiple structures.

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/09/2013/finnish-archaeologist-digs-up-ancient-civilization-in-brazil

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Finnish archaeologist digs up ancient civilization in Brazil (Original Post) Judi Lynn Sep 2013 OP

The Nazca lines are in SA- wonder if it is related but using the different terrain in Brazil lunasun Sep 2013 #1

Not actually news to some of us... Scootaloo Sep 2013 #2

lunasun

(21,646 posts)

1. The Nazca lines are in SA- wonder if it is related but using the different terrain in Brazil

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Thu Sep 19, 2013, 11:28 PM

Sep 2013

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Those lines are best viewed from the air too

Scootaloo

(25,699 posts)

2. Not actually news to some of us...

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Fri Sep 20, 2013, 12:09 AM

Sep 2013

Actually this fellow's probably talking about the same thing - the earth mounds and causeways of the Beni Savannah at the Bolivia-Brazil border.

There's also ample evidence to suggest that the amazon basin itself harbored sedentary civilization - Spanish and Portuguese accounts tell of them, and the agricultural technology of the region's indigenous people is well-done to escape the problems of the basin's poor spil. In fact it may be what we see as the "untouched wilderness" of the Amazon is in fact cover growth, a weedy lot covering up a mostly-unknown history. of course, since the region has a notable lack of stone, being a forested floodplain, there aren't likely to be lost temples or whatever... but I'm sure the earthworks could still be detected.

Think about it - human activity in the Americas was great enough that their near-extinction led to a major multi-decade cold snap, as the output of the fires they set suddenly vanished, allowing all that annual carbon to be absorbed as the bodies of plants.

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