Airborne LiDAR Scans Unearth Sprawling 2,500-Year-Old Urban Megasites in Upper Amazon
High-density airborne laser scanning penetrates dense jungle canopy to uncover extensive interconnected agrarian settlements, canals, and ceremonial plazas.
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High-resolution aerial LiDAR mapping has shattered long-held archaeological assumptions regarding human habitation in pre-Columbian South America. Millions of laser pulses beamed through the dense canopy of the Ecuadorian Amazon basin have revealed hundreds of monumental earthwork platforms, causeways, agricultural terraces, and residential mounds dating to 500 BCE.
The extensive interconnected road network indicates sophisticated urban planning and territorial governance rivaling contemporary Mediterranean civilization structures.
