Over 20,000 precolonial earthworks in the Southwest Amazonia

Abstract

Numerous geometric earthworks have been found in southwestern Amazonia, evidence of a monument-building precolonial civilization1, 2–3. This knowledge has contributed to the discussion about the deep history and the precolonial urbanism of Amazonia, its sociocultural contexts and its environmental legacy2,4, 5, 6, 7–8. Estimates of the geographical extent and population size of the forest civilization have remained weak, because the detection of earthworks has been almost exclusively limited to deforested areas where vegetation does not completely hide the structures. Here we used canopy-penetrating LiDAR data over 4,430 km of flight to define the geographical distribution and quantity of earthworks in this region better. On the basis of both existing data and our LiDAR documentation, we show that this cultural area alone contains as many earthworks as previously estimated for the whole of Amazonia. We also propose that the total human population of the area in 100–300 ad was 1.25–3 million people. If similar results are found elsewhere in Amazonia, the total precolonial population density and its effect on the current Amazonian soil and forest structure, biodiversity and even some modelling of the global climate should be re-evaluated.