A ‘Stonehenge’ in Brazil’s Jungle
December 15, 2016 3:47 PM   Subscribe

A ‘Stonehenge,’ and a Mystery, in the Amazon. "The conventional belief is that only small tribes could have inhabited the Amazon jungle, but new discoveries call that into question."
posted by homunculus (25 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
So...An upside of deforestation of the Amazon is the discovery of ancient artifacts. Cool. I guess...
posted by Thorzdad at 4:03 PM on December 15, 2016


Might need a touch of cynicism Before leaping to any big conclusions.
posted by Artw at 4:07 PM on December 15, 2016 [3 favorites]




I didn't know "archaeoastronomy" was a thing. I wish I were 7 years old again so I could tell everyone I wanted to be an archaeoastronomer when I grew up.
posted by AFABulous at 5:57 PM on December 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


I guess no one knew who the builders were, or what they were doing. But their legacy remains still, hewn into the living rock of
posted by mobunited at 6:04 PM on December 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


"Annalee Newitz: Finding North America’s lost medieval city: Cahokia was bigger than Paris—then it was completely abandoned. I went there to find out why."

This is a great article! (I sort of wish it had its own FPP but I am Cahokia-partial!)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:05 PM on December 15, 2016


It really does deserve its own FPP. Go for it!
posted by homunculus at 8:22 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


I've been reading some of the stuff coming out of Amazonian archaeology arguing (essentially) that it's not so much that the rain forest is inhospitable to large, complex human settlements, but inhospitable to their archaeological preservation. There's a lot of, like, arguing over caloric density of possible farming methods achievable by known technology of nearby cities (and I don't really know enough to assess the debate, just to enjoy reading it), but the potential for much larger settlements than previously thought possible in the Amazon is definitely a very hot topic right now. The other big contributor to the explosion of new, undeciphered sites and and new theories is modern earthmapping technology, being able to map from satellites and able to use ground-penetrating ... stuff (radar? magnetometers? Various things?). It reveals unusually symmetrical patterns that are the marks of human building activity that are difficult to spot visually under the thickness and density of the jungle vegetation. (That sort of thing is much easier to spot in a desert or a tundra or somewhere with a deciduous winter where all the trees are bare and the grass dies back.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:04 PM on December 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm glad that the article mentions the lost city of z, as David Grann's book of the same name comes to the intriguing conclusion that Fawcett could well have walked through the remains of 'Z' (or rather a very large settlement which may have been the source of the legend), and never knew it was there. To add to Eyebrows McGee's point, it's not just from the air that rainforests obscure archaeological features. From my personal experience of walking up two iron age hillforts in the UK, one thickly wooded and one open moorland, things like banks and ditches can become nigh on impossible to find once there are trees to change your perspective (and that was in temperate, semi-managed woodland).
posted by Vortisaur at 12:59 AM on December 16, 2016


I didn't know "archaeoastronomy" was a thing

There was an Intro to Archaeoastronomy class listed in my college's course catalog when I was an undergrad, offered by the Physics department of all things. Every semester starting from my freshman year, I phoned the department to ask if the course was being offered that term and every time they told me "no". That's not technically true, I spent my junior year abroad and it suddenly occurs to me that they probably actually had it that year. Damn.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 4:35 AM on December 16, 2016


In fact, I just checked online (such wonders were not possible then) and I see it's still listed in the catalog. I wonder if it's still a fake-out nonexistent course or if someone is actually teaching it.

A study of ancient Old- and New-World astronomy as exhibited in archaic myth, megalithic monuments, Mesoamerican buildings, stelae and manuscripts, and alignments of archaeological sites. The fundamentals of spherical astronomy will he presented, with emphasis on horizon phenomena, making it possible to explore the implications of possible astronomical alignments, astronomical content of Mesoamerican codices, and the sky-lore of a variety of cultures. Special attention will be given to early Bronze Age megalith monuments in Britain, to Middle American astronomy, and to astronomy of the Native American Indians.
Notes: See also Physics 6070, Physics 6750.
credit hours: 3

posted by Hal Mumkin at 4:41 AM on December 16, 2016


i recall a book, perhaps 1491, offering the hypothesis that large portions of the rain forest, always conceived by the American mind as primevally wild, were in fact cultivated orchards over the space of centuries, up to the 1600s or later.
posted by megatherium at 4:41 AM on December 16, 2016


I can't remember if he specifically talks about orchards, but 1491 does certainly promote the view that the Amazon was far more extensively settled and shaped by humans than in popular imagination. So even if this is not the consensus view, it must have been talked about at the time he wrote the book.

One of the large themes/theories behind 1491 is that by the time Europeans first encountered many groups, they had already been decimated by disease and spreading social strife, which caused the Europeans to underestimate the size and complexity of their civilizations. That's in addition to the willful destruction and ignorance.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:01 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


I recall a BBC documentary which hypothesized that anthropogenic terra preta soil supported large populations in the Amazon. The timing is approximately right: "Terra preta soils are of pre-Columbian nature and were created by humans between 450 BCE and 950 CE."
posted by clawsoon at 9:04 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


I had never heard of terra preta. That's cool.
posted by OmieWise at 9:26 AM on December 16, 2016


I believe this is the terra preta documentary I'm thinking of.
posted by clawsoon at 10:16 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


I see it's still listed in the catalog. I wonder if it's still a fake-out nonexistent course or if someone is actually teaching it.

It's not that it's a fake course, it's just that the professor is kind of busy.
posted by happyroach at 11:26 AM on December 16, 2016


In the late '70s my university offered a class called "Megalithic Software" all about geometry in ancient walled cities, typically based on ovals that could be laid out using right triangles. The professor who taught it had even written and published the textbook we used. Pretty sure I still have it. I think his name was Lyle Borg or Bork. I suppose I should consult the internet.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:27 AM on December 16, 2016


It's not just the plants and the terra preta. The various Amazonian tribes are probably not 'primitive tribes living in the same way as their ancestors when they first came to the area', rather they are effectively post-apocalyptic refugees. It's definitely true for at least some, reacting to 19th/20th century atrocities that drove them out of their former homes, but the theory goes is that it's pretty much true for all of them. That the whole basin was fairly well developed/had large-scale organization, and then disease ripped through the place before Europeans had even seen it in more than passing, leaving only isolated small groups.

I seem to recall that there are things about the culture structure and organization of the tribes that suggest it as well, but I can't remember the details.
posted by tavella at 11:32 AM on December 16, 2016


In the late '70s my university offered a class called "Megalithic Software" all about geometry in ancient walled cities, typically based on ovals that could be laid out using right triangles. The professor who taught it had even written and published the textbook we used. Pretty sure I still have it. I think his name was Lyle Borg or Bork. I suppose I should consult the internet.

We are getting into Chariots of the Gods territory.
posted by OmieWise at 11:35 AM on December 16, 2016


We are getting into Chariots of the Gods territory

If I recall correctly the prof's work was all about maths, not aliens.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:48 AM on December 16, 2016


Aha, I found some references to the tribal structure clues that I mentioned above, in this article on Passing Strangeness. Roughly, it's based on the fact that elsewhere in the world, hunter-gatherers have extremely minimal hierarchy, but the Amazon is different.

"Hunter-gatherer cultures or slash-and-burn agriculturalists are invariably egalitarian—there is no surplus of anything for a chief to hoard, and in the event someone starts trying to impose on the rest of his group, his prospective subjects can just walk away. Within limits any bit of land is as good as any other for gathering food or a new slash-and-burn plot.

But some Amazonian tribes do have aristocracies. The Yurimagua were known to have a “high king” of sorts into the 1700s, a time when the tribe was living at a hunter-gatherer level. Even in the modern day many tribes (for example, the Kuikuro) have complex social hierarchies, which is unique for societies that don’t engage in settled farming."

posted by tavella at 12:07 PM on December 16, 2016


I thought one of the cooler bits of homunculus' Cahokia link was an attempt to weave the supernova of 1054 (SN 1054) into the narrative as a potential factor in a putative cult-like movement behind the complex, because, among other things SN 1054 was the supernova that dared not speak its name in Europe (no definitive written record of it can be found in Europe only, last I heard), but I'd think the supernova of 1006 (SN 1006), which is often touted as the brightest supernova in recorded history, could have been equally or more important as an inspiration, with SN 1054 as a fulfillment or consummation, then the decline, which seemed to begin after ~1050, could be cast in part as a 'when prophecy fails' development.

Hmmm, rereading homunculus' link, it's not clear to me the author didn't mean to refer to SN 1006 in the first place:
Many of these revivals were inspired by astronomical events. Pauketat suggests this might have been the case with the revival that founded Cahokia: In 1054, just as the city was growing, a supernova lit up the sky for almost a month. It was so bright that it would have been visible during the day and as luminous as the full Moon at night. . . .
posted by jamjam at 12:54 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Megatherium, that sounds like the work of one of my favorite profs, David G. Campbell, and specifically the research he did with William Balee.
posted by umbú at 9:22 PM on December 16, 2016


In other henge news: The lost sounds of Stonehenge
posted by homunculus at 11:36 AM on January 7, 2017


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