Martti Pärssinen reveals LIDAR technology has uncovered a massive precolonial civilization in the Amazon rainforest.
New LIDAR surveys have revealed that the Aquiry civilization, a precolonial society in southwestern Amazonia, was significantly larger and more densely populated than previously assumed. Martti Pärssinen and his team used canopy-penetrating laser pulses to identify approximately 30,000 geometric earthworks, including ditches and roads, spanning an area of 183,000 square kilometers. These findings suggest the region supported a peak population of 1.25 to 3 million people between 100 and 300 CE. Before the use of LIDAR, many of these structures remained hidden beneath the dense forest canopy, leading to the traditional view of the Amazon as an untouched wilderness. The new data proves that the Aquiry were active stewards of the land, managing fruit and nut-bearing trees and cultivating crops like maize and squash. The research indicates that the Amazon was shaped by large human populations who built complex, multicultural networks of communities. The study, published in Nature, suggests that if similar results are found elsewhere, the total precolonial population density of the Amazon may require significant re-evaluation.