Archaeologists Discover Lost Civilization in the Amazon with Lasers

[Music] Perry faucet was obsessed for 20 years he made Trek after Trek Deep into the Amazon jungle he was chasing after what most people thought was a myth a lost city he called Z the story goes in a 1925 he took one last Expedition into the rainforest with his son and a close friend they disappeared no one ever found their bodies the jungle swallowed a mystery people tried to figure out what happened to them for decades but nothing ever came of it and faucet wasn't just some random Treasure Hunter he had backing his theories were

rooted in early accounts from Spanish explorers like Francisco di Oriana who claimed to have seen enormous cities along the Amazon River in the 1540s these cities had armies they had armies massive roads and Monumental structures but no one found any evidence to back up these wild claims instead many people just figured that the Amazon was simply too harsh that the soil was too poor for any large permanent civilizations to ever exist fosta didn't care about the skepticism he knew or at least believed with his whole heart that Z was out there and he wasn't completely

off base indigenous tribes did tell stories of ancient cities hidden beneath the jungle canopy but their Tales were treated as folklore and nothing more after all who could imagine Grand cities buried under all that dense unforgiving forest fet was convinced that the jungle wasn't the untouched Wilderness all his peers thought it was he thought it was a place where an ient civilizations once thrived but when he disappeared so did the idea that anything resembling a complex civilization could have sprung up in the Amazon The Legend Of Z became just that a legend fostes Expeditions became

the stuff of Adventure novels and films recently though thanks to some new tech fed's ideas are starting to look less like fantasy and more like reality the Amazon might be holding on to far more than we ever thought and the missing cities maybe they were there all along hidden just beneath that jungle canopy waiting for someone to find them the Amazon jungle has been one of the most impenetrable places on Earth for centuries from the ground it's a nightmare to navigate there are Tangled Vines there's thick foliage there are swarms of insects and a lot

of stuff that wants to eat you it isn't much better from the air the dense canopy is like a green blanket hiding whatever lies below now because of this the Deep Amazon on is mostly a mystery you can fly over it in a plane you're not going to see much though beyond the tops of trees and what's underneath the canopy for the longest time no one really knew but now we have a new tech called ldar and it's pretty cool basically archaeologists Mount this laser system to a helicopter and then they fly over the jungle

and shoot lasers down at the ground the lasers somehow ignore the trees and bounce off the earth below then send back data that creates a 3D map of the surface trees not included for the first time we've been able to see what's been hiding under the jungle and what they're finding is wild lar has revealed massive cities cities no one even knew existed in Northern Bolivia researchers using lar found giant pyramids and ceremonial centers and sprawling roads that connect it smaller settlements kind of like big cities and suburbs there are entire Urban centers with sophisticated

designs designs that include complex irrigation systems that use the natural rivers to support agriculture imagine that a whole network of cities right where people once thought no large Society could survive and it's not just in Bolivia either liar scans are revealing similar structures across the Amazon what's mindblowing is that we flown over these areas for years and we had no idea what was below the jungle hit everything too well but now it's all starting to come into Focus these light arm maps are showing a landscape dotted with Monumental structures and it's clear that what we

thought we knew about the Amazon was dead wrong beneath the trees a massive ancient civilization has been sitting there waiting for us to discover it for years the argument was simple the Amazon soil is terrible it's Sandy it drains too fast and it's practically stripped of nutrients that's why scientists believe no large civilization could have ever thrived in the Amazon you can't grow crops without good soil right but here's the twist deep in the rainfor Forest archaeologists started finding patches of incredibly rich black soil teraa they called it and it completely shattered the theory the

discovery of Tera praa or black Earth proved that ancient civilizations weren't just surviving in the Amazon they were thriving and they had figured out how to do something revolutionary this soil wasn't natural indigenous people created it by mixing charcoal animal bones manure and compost this process produced soil that retain nutrients far better than the Amazon 's naturally poor soil what's more impressive is that today it still works modern scientists have tried planting crops in centuries old terraa and they found it just as fertile as when it was first made but why does this matter well

it changes everything terraa allowed ancient people to farm on a massive scale turning a once Barren forest floor into Farmland capable of sustaining huge populations this discovery also explains why large cities could have existed in the heart of the Amazon they weren't just relying on the natural landscape to survive they were transforming it instead of moving with the seasons like smaller nomadic tribes these civilization stayed put cultivating the land year after year what's even more fascinating is that Tera praa seems to be everywhere hidden in Pockets across the Amazon particularly along rivers where major settlements

likely existed it suggests that the ancient inhabitants of the rainforest knew exactly how to engineer their environment to their advantage they weren't just passive dwell dwellers in a jungle they actively shaped it to support their growing societies this discovery completely rewrites the story of the Amazon far from being an untouched Wilderness it was home to a series of advanced agricultural civilizations that could support large dense populations thanks to the innovation of Tera praa and as researchers continue to find more of this soil the picture of these Lost Cities becomes clearer if you had asked archaeologist

a few decades ago what they thought Grand cities could be hidden in the Amazon most would have laughed but the aano valley Discovery in eastern Ecuador has wiped that smug grin off their faces in 2024 a groundbreaking lar survey reveals something astonishing over 6,000 structures spread across 300 square kilometers hidden under centuries of thick jungle growth this wasn't some small isolated Village what they found in the upano valley was a complex network of cities interconnected by roads and waterways thriving in an area previously thought to be uninhabited before lar explorers and archaeologists had to rely

on guest workk combing through the jungle and hoping to stumble upon ruins and even then dense vegetation made it nearly impossible to get the full picture but now with lar the entire layout of the ancient civilization is coming into Focus the upano valley shows a highly organized Society complete with rectangular platforms ceremonial centers and massive public plazas these platforms measuring 20 by 10 m stood several meters high suggesting that the inhabitants built Monumental structures on top maybe for religious or political purposes but that's not all the lar scan also revealed an extensive network of Roads

some stretching over 25 km and intricate irrigation systems these roads weren't random dirt paths they were carefully engineered with sharp right angles and connected to major cities like arteries ensuring trade and communication between settlements this isn't what you'd expect to find in the unforgiving Amazon it's the kind of infrastructure you'd associate with wellestablished civilizations like the Maya or the Romans the scale of what they found has stunned everyone the opo valley might have been home to tens of thousands of people maybe even a 100,000 people at its peak the cities were also surrounded by agricultural

Fields this suggests that there was a thriving Economy based on farming an economy that was supported by the Terra praa soil that enriched the region this complex society was hidden and hidden for a long time it speaks to just how well the jungle is able to eat up anything that's left abandoned for even a short period of time entire cities have been buried beneath a sea of green but not anymore Liars helping us finally peel back the layers and check out the full extent of what was there all [Music] along with light art technology and

new archaeological techniques the Amazon is slowly giving up its Secrets each new discovery brings us closer to understanding how millions of people once lived and thrived in a place many thought was uninhabitable the lost cities of the Amazon are a forgotten chapter of human achievement entire world views Mythology stories relationships and economies have been lost to our Collective understanding of History these people shaped the landscape they built complex societies they left a mark on the world that we are only beginning to discover and things are only getting started researchers think there are still countless numbers

of cities waiting to be uncovered some think that the Amazon might have once been home to civilizations that could have even given ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia a run for their money what we found so far is only the tip of the iceberg the Amazon's thick canopy may have hidden its history but with each light or scan the jungle's Mysteries become a little clearer the lost city of z may be real after all only it wasn't just one city it was an entire civilization hidden beneath the trees thanks for watching what other archaeological discoveries do you

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