This ancient civilization, called the Aquiry, arose 2,500 years ago in Brazil. Based on the large number of earthworks, called geoglyphs, the Aquiry may have had 3 million people before the society collapsed, the researchers suggested in the study.
In the new study, published Wednesday (July 29) in the journal Nature, Pärssinen and co-authors presented findings from their survey of nearly 1,740 square miles (4,500 square kilometers) of Amazonian rainforest, which revealed 396 new geoglyphs and allowed them to approximate the geographical extent of the Aquiry civilization.
Because of the dense canopy of trees in the rainforest, archaeological investigation in the area has been limited. Most of the evidence for the Aquiry civilization comes from lidar and airborne laser scanning of monumental geoglyphs that were constructed between 600 B.C. and A.D. 850, according to the study. People lived in multifamily longhouses around the earthworks, and they farmed crops like maize and squash.
To date, archaeologists have identified around 1,700 known geoglyphs in the area. But the researchers think the total is significantly higher, with more than 20,000 Aquiry earthworks waiting to be found in places that haven't yet been surveyed. And based on an estimate of 300 people needed to build and maintain each geoglyph on average, the researchers estimated that the Aquiry civilization likely peaked at 1.25 million to 3 million people between A.D. 100 and 300.
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The presence of thousands of geoglyphs in the southwest Amazon region is leading archaeologists to rethink assumptions about precolonial civilizations and urban development — but it's also bringing up questions about the fate of the Aquiry.
How much do you know about the first people to reach the Americas? Find out with our First Americans quiz!
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