A long time belief that the Amazon Rainforest was too inhabitable for any civilization to live there has evidence to point to the contrary. Archeologists have found a huge swath of forest that signals a very large and advanced civilization thrived in this unruly tangled jungle that is full of mosquitoes. The long held belief is that small, primitive Stone Age tribes may have lived in this unforgivable environment as hunter and gatherers but no society larger than that….until now.
To the contrary, though…. American archeologists have found evidence that signals that upward around 20 million people inhabited the area. Man made Indian mounds that have been excavated unearthed a very rich soil that was made fertile by the ancestors of the land from hundreds of years ago. These mounds are called terra preta made from charcoal, human waste, and other organic ingredients in the soil that plummet 3 feet deep and over 100 acres wide. To top that, they have also found huge orchards of fruit trees, moats, canals, and causeways that lean toward a complex civilization that inhabited the area around 800 AD. They hypothesize that these early people diverted rivers and moved soil for their orchards. The findings of excavation work performed by Anna C. Roosevelt also shown house foundations, pottery, and such advance network of agriculture that it must have been at least 100,000 people that lived in just this one area of the forest. This soil was so rich in nutrients that it was compared to the mysterious Hopewell Nation of Iowa.
Even though the jungle life was harsh with poisonous snakes and mosquitoes, the land was full of potential. All the people had to do was transform the landscape to feed the number of people and protect the village from predators and it appears that is exactly what they did.
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