Last year it was announced that scientists had made a remarkable discovery in the Amazon rainforest, uncovering evidence of ancient cities that existed deep within its dense foliage.
By using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology, researchers were able to digitally remove the forest canopy and reveal the ruins of vast urban settlements in the Amazon.
One of these mega-regional cities in the Bolivian Amazon, known as Llanos de Mojos, was abandoned around 600 years ago but was once a stronghold of the Casarabe culture, engaged in hunting, fishing, and farming, and the area included monumental architectures such as platforms and pyramids.
The LiDAR mapping provided a bird's eye view, exposing a network of causeways radiating from the urban centers, canals that extended to rivers and suburban-like settlements that stretched across the landscape, painting a vivid picture of the civilizations that flourished in the Amazon River basin and its tributaries for over five millennia.
The data obtained from the research was then used to create high-resolution images that digitally revealed the archaeological features beneath the forest cover.
The maps uncovered 26 unique sites, each encompassing vast areas and exhibiting complex architectural structures.
These findings provide insights into the societal organization and landscape engineering practices of the ancient Amazonians and challenge the notion of the Amazon rainforest as an untouched wilderness, highlighting a legacy of significant human occupation and urbanization predating recorded history.
The land once mythologized by European conquerors as a realm of savagery and cannibalism, emerged therefore through remote sensing as a tapestry of interwoven constellations of agroecological urbanisms.
However, the rapid deforestation currently occurring in the Amazon poses a threat to these untouched archaeological sites and the remaining hidden records of past cultures face the risk of being lost forever.
Scientists advocate for large-scale LiDAR scanning to document and preserve these invaluable remnants before they succumb to further destruction.
Preserving the historical and cultural heritage of the Amazon is crucial to understanding the depth of human occupation and the intricate relationship between humans and the environment and Quito-based design firm Estudio A0 (Ana María Durán Calisto and Jaskran Kalirai) in collaboration with Manuela Omari Ima attempted to do so with their project entitled "Surfacing - The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia".
Currently on display in the Arsenale spaces at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (until 26th November 2023), the installation comprises woven artefacts suspended from the ceiling and chambira embroidered drawings of ancient Amazonian agroecological urbanisms mapping a series of regions and areas including Marajóo, Chachapoyas, Llanos de Mojos, Napo River, Ucayali River, the Upper Xingu, Marañón River, Upper Madeira, Upper Purús and Santa Ana.
Made with simple and natural materials, including raffia, wooden beads and seeds, they depict a variety of civilizations that thrived in the Amazon basin, surrounded by the local flora and fauna.
These embroidered drawings weave together rural landscapes and urban spaces and, while they are artistic representations of the mega-regional cities of the various areas, they serve as an invitation for more people to explore and acknowledge these civilizations as remarkable models of urban ecology.
The embroidered tapestries, with their vivid colors and three-dimensional elements created from natural materials, serve as poignant reminders of the profound wisdom possessed by these civilizations that understood the delicate balance between human settlements and the natural world.
They beckon us to embrace the significance of these ancient societies and contemplate their deep reverence for the environment and their ability to harmoniously coexist with it.
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