The Science Paper Behind the Amazon Cities

In January 2024, a team led by French archaeologist Stéphen Rostain published a landmark paper in Science: “Two thousand years of garden urbanism in the Upper Amazon” (DOI: 10.1126/science.adi6317). Using airborne lidar to strip away the jungle canopy, they mapped a network of 15 urban centres in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, with more than 6,000 earthen platforms, plazas and straight engineered roads, dating back to around 500 BC. It is the oldest and largest urban network ever found in Amazonia.

What strikes me is what this confirms. The Spanish chroniclers of the 1540s, men like Orellana and Carvajal, described thriving cities along the Amazon and were dismissed as liars for four centuries. The cities were there all along, the forest just swallowed them after contact.

Very interesting what science can help with in archaeology these days. It reminds me of the mitochondrial DNA analysis that identified Richard III, whose body was found buried under a car park in Leicester. Same pattern: a modern technique reading old evidence, and a centuries-old question gets settled.

With the onset of AI and better science, expect a move towards much better data analysis and gathering in archaeology and history. Lidar was only the start. Machine learning is already being used to spot features in survey data, date pottery, and read worn inscriptions. The tools get cheaper every year, and a lot of old skepticism about the past is going to have to be revised.