Friday, February 17, 2017

MYSTERIOUS ANCIENT “STONEHENGE-LIKE” CIRCLES FOUND IN AMAZON RAINFOREST

by ALEXA ERICKSON
Source: Collective Evolution

The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s greatest natural resources, with its incredible vegetation continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. Having been referred to as the “Lungs of our Planet,” about 20% of Earth’s oxygen is produced here.


The impenetrable lushness of this revered rainforest lends to both its ominous reputation and the misconception that it was an untouched wilderness prior to European exploration. As discoveries continue to show, indigenous people altered the land far before then.

Now, researchers have found that the Amazonian rainforest was transformed over two thousand years ago by ancient people who constructed hundreds of massive, mysterious earthworks.



Brazilian and U.K. researchers found the more than 450 massive geoglyphs that had been hidden for centuries by trees by way of deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest. The earthworks span an area of about 5,000 square miles.

It is unknown what function the sites served. Archaeologists say it is unlikely they were villages, since they recovered very few artifacts during excavation, and the layout doesn’t appear defensive, either. Experts believe the sites were used on occasion, potentially as ritual gathering places.

The research, carried out by Jennifer Watling, a post-doctoral researcher at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, University of São Paulo, is yet another challenge to the overwhelming assumption that the rainforest ecosystem was untouched by humans.

“The fact that these sites lay hidden for centuries beneath mature rainforest really challenges the idea that Amazonian forests are ‘pristine ecosystems,” stated Dr. Watling. “We immediately wanted to know whether the region was already forested when the geoglyphs were built, and to what extent people impacted the landscape to build these earthworks.”




The researchers used state-of-the-art methods to reconstruct 6,000 years of vegetation and fire history around two geoglyph sites. They discovered that humans heavily changed bamboo forests for millennia, and small temporary clearings were created to construct the geoglyphs.

Perhaps one of the most useful pieces of information the experts discovered was that, rather than burning large tracts of forest to farm or construct geoglyphs, people altered their environment by way of focusing on economically valuable tree species like palms, which created a sort of “prehistoric supermarket” of useful forest products.

The team also found evidence suggesting that the biodiversity of some of the remaining forests in Acre state in the western Brazilian Amazon, where the ditched enclosures were found, may have a strong history of the ancient “agroforestry” practices.

“Despite the huge number and density of geoglyph sites in the region, we can be certain that Acre’s forests were never cleared as extensively, or for as long, as they have been in recent years,”  said Dr. Watling. “Our evidence that Amazonian forests have been managed by indigenous peoples long before European Contact should not be cited as justification for the destructive, unsustainable land-use practiced today. It should instead serve to highlight the ingenuity of past subsistence regimes that did not lead to forest degradation, and the importance of indigenous knowledge for finding more sustainable land-use alternatives.”

The team extracted soil samples from a series of pits dug both within and outside of the geoglyphs to conduct the study. They then used the soils to analyze “phytoliths,” which are a type of microscopic plant fossil made of silica, in order to recreate ancient vegetation. Charcoal analysis revealed  the amount of ancient forest burning, and carbon stable isotopes revealed just how open the vegetation had been in the past.

The early edition of the study has now been published in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Consider contributing to this site

Hope you like this not for profit site.

We could not devote so much energy into continuing this blog if it was not for the support of readers.

We greatly appreciate any support you provide!


Fair Use of Information for ALL All data is freely available to the ALL, as an inherent inalienable right of consciousness and existence, for the use of any being in creation. No Claim of Ownership is made by MDT, for any data presented on this page or elsewhere. Any information, writing, photographs, videos or content on this page is freely available to ALL without claim of Intellectual Ownership. We advise providing attribution to this website (MakingaDifferenceToday369) when, and if, data herein presented is used elsewhere; so as to remain honest, transparent and to maintain the public trust as to where the information was found. Any and All data herein presented has been re-claimed for the collective benefit of all sentient life from any and all parties who seek to limit its dissemination. Any claims of intellectual ownership or copyright, that were once ascribed to content on this page, or elsewhere, is NULL and VOID; as a result of a misrepresentation of right of ownership and breach of trust by any party whom presumes to claim title and exclusive right of use. No requests, threats, or notices which seek to limit the sharing information for the benefit of ALL will be honored. However, a humble request to provide information in a certain way or form will be considered, up to and including, the partial removal of data, and only as an agreement between 2 honorable parties whom fully disclose and honor a moral duty to the truth. FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, and so on. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. In this respect we are in accordance with the statutes as well as Natural Law.  Issued pursuant to and governed by I AM, eternal essence, in body. MDT is a humble messenger of the One Infinite and Absolute Creator, in service of the Truth and the ALL.