"The settlements are much bigger than others in the Amazon,” says Stéphen Rostain at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. “They are comparable with Maya sites.”

What’s more, at between 3000 and 1500 years old, these cities are also older than other pre-Columbian ones discovered in the Amazon. Why the people who built them disappeared isn’t clear.

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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    10 months ago

    Aliens took them, obviously. What else? What other logical, rational, simple explanation could there be?

  • Lath@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    I’ll tell you why. They built all that infrastructure only for their enemies to use it as an all-you-can-take pillage buffet.

    • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      I’m not sure if you’re referring to the Conquistadors, but this site was abandoned quite a long time before that.

      All the Upano artefacts dated by Rostain’s team are older than 1500 years, however, suggesting the settlements in the valley were abandoned after this time, long before the colonial era. Why isn’t clear, but the team has found layers of volcanic ash, so it is possible a series of eruptions forced people to leave the valley.

      • Lath@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        It’s good that you’re not sure. Most indigenous pops weren’t buddy-buddy with each other, no matter the region. And haters gonna hate. So, raid and pillage for whatever reason. Boom! Civilization gone.