LOST CITY: Ancient settlements uncovered in the Amazon flourished before the Europeans arrived, employing techniques like the fish dam pictured here to feed large populations.
Image: ©SCIENCE/AAAS
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In 1925 British adventurer Colonel Percy Fawcett disappeared into the wilds of the Amazon, never to be heard from again after going there in search of a lost city he called Z. But decades later, a city of sorts—actually a series of settlements connected by roads—has been found at the headwaters of the Xingu River where Fawcett went missing in an area previously buried beneath the dense foliage in what is now Xingu National Park.
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Anthropologist Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida teamed with the local Kuikuro people in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso to uncover 28 towns, villages and hamlets that may have supported as many as 50,000 people within roughly 7,700 square miles (20,000 square kilometers) of forest—an area slightly smaller than New Jersey. The larger towns boasted defensive ditches 10 feet (three meters) deep and 33 feet (10 meters) wide backed by a wooden palisade as well as large plazas, some reaching 490 feet (150 meters) across.
The remains of houses and ceramic cooking utensils show that humans occupied these cities for around 1,000 years, from roughly 1,500 years to as recently as 400 years ago. Satellite pictures reveal that during that time, the inhabitants carved roads through the jungle; all plaza villages had a major road that ran northeast to southwest along the summer solstice axis and linked to other settlements as much as three miles (five kilometers) away. There were bridges on some of the roads and others had canoe canals running alongside them.
The remains of the settlements also hint at surrounding large fields of manioc, or cassava (a starchy root that is still a staple part of the Brazilian diet) as well as the earthen dams and artificial ponds of fish farming, still practiced by people who may be the present-day descendants of the Kuikuro. Although such "garden cities," as Heckenberger describes them in Science, do not match the dense urbanism of contemporary Brazilian metropolises such as Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, they do blend seamlessly into the jungle and maximize use of limited natural resources. They also suggest that the rainforest bears the marks of intense human habitation, rather than being pristine.
But, ultimately, these cities died; most likely a victim of the diseases brought by European explorers in the early 16th century, according to Heckenberger. Two thirds or more of the original human inhabitants of Brazil are believed to have been killed by such disease, and the forest quickly swallowed the cities they left behind.
As a result, later European explorers had no idea that a civilization had once flourished in the Amazon, despite clues in kilometer-long earthworks and unusually fertile so-called terra preta (dark) soil. The 500 or so Kuikuro may have known of their ancestors' exploits—and they may have drawn the attention of Fawcett and other explorers—but only now can the "lost cities" of the Amazon claim to have been found.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCharles Mann in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.
I think we have climbed the pinnacle, the Combined English and other language circulation of NGM is nearly nine million monthly with more than fifty million readers monthly!
We need to encourage more coverage now, to ride Mann's coattails to public critical mass.
Please put this (soil) bug in your colleague's ears. These issues need to gain traction among all the various disciplines who have an iron in this fire.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/soil/mann-text
I love the "MEGO" factor theme Mann built the story around. Lord... how I KNOW that reaction.
I like his characterization concerning the pot shards found in Terra Preta soils;
so filled with pottery - "It was as if the river's first inhabitants had
thrown a huge, rowdy frat party, smashing every plate in sight, then
buried the evidence."
A couple of researchers I was not aware of were quoted, and I'll be sending them posts about our Biochar group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/b...guid=122501696
and data base;
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node
I also have been trying to convince Michael Pollan ( NYT Food Columnist, Author ) to do a follow up story, here's my latest pleading email to him, after his first reply that " I think Charles has the subject covered " :
"Dear Michael,
.On Friday, the Washington Post ran an article on another story in NGM's September issue; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081401492.html
on "The Green Sahara".
Since the NGM cover reads "WHERE FOOD BEGINS" , I thought this would be right down your alley and focus more attention on Mann's work.
I've admired your ability since "Botany of Desire" to over come the "MEGO" factor (My Eyes Glaze Over) and make food & agriculture into page turners.
It's what Mann hasn't covered that I thought would interest you as a follow up article for the NYT.
The Biochar provisions by Sen.Ken Salazar in the farm bill,
Dr, James Hansen's Global warming solutions paper and letter to the G-8 conference last month, and coming article in Science,
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf
The new university programs & field studies, in temperate soils
Glomalin's role in soil tilth & Terra Preta,
The International Biochar Initiative Conference Sept 8 in New Castle;
http://www.biochar-international.org/ibi2008conference/aboutibi2008conference.html
Similar information had already been published by M. Heckenberger in 2003. The reader has a right to be told what items, if any, are really news now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, but, but...How is it that the Amazonian basin is the endlessly diverse fountain of biological process if humans were cultivating the land so intensely only a few hundred years ago? Is it possible that the qualities we hold in such high regard are in fact the result of human cultivation? Is it possible that we could once again farm the amazon without disrupting it's natural complexity? Seems like it to me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChares Mann has an article in the upcoming National Geographic? That is great news. I'm looking forward to it, big time! His thoroughly captivating updating of the old eurocentric story of what the americas were prior to their arrival is one of the most compelling and significant pieces of the puzzle yet to be brought forward for consumption. It's also very refreshing to know that archaeology and other investigative field studies are pushing forward in attempts to accurately establish the reality of pre-contact americas. If National Geographic is going to support his interpretation, let's hope it likewise is going to produce a program for television similar to the "Germs, Guns, and Steel" productions of Jared Diamond's work seen earlier last year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also sent Jared Diamond my comments above, adding that this is the technology to avoid our own "Collapse".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBiochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages& SIMULTANEOUSLY!
This technology represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability;
10X Lower Methane & N2O soil emissions,
3X Fertility .
Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration. If US farmers were to get payed the price of CO2 abatement in Europe, that would be over $500 per ton for biochar put on their fields.
Carbon to the soil , the only ubiquitous and economic place to put.
Cheers,
Erich