Major Discovery of an Ancient Civilization in the Heart of the Amazon

The discovery of an ancient civilization’s remains, from thousands of years ago, reveals important data on history and how climate change affects the world’s largest tropical forest: the Amazon.

“The findings changed all our knowledge of the Amazon, because we can no longer speak of virgin forest,” says Finnish archaeologist Martti Pärssinen.

The first geoglyphs were discovered in 1977, in Bolivia and Brazil, and research took place over 20 years. Pärssinen and Brazilian paleontologist, Alceu Ranzi, realized that an ancient Amazonian culture, Aquiry, lived between 700 B.C. and 900 A.D. in the Acre region. For these 1,900 years, Aquiry became one of the most significant civilizations on the American continent. Initially believed to be home to 60,000 people, satellite images and LiDAR technology showed over a million inhabitants across 100,000 km2. By the year 900, it seemed that people had stopped creating geoglyphs, roughly at the same time when the Mayan, Tiwanaku, and Wari civilizations vanished. “We don’t know why the Aquiry civilization disappeared. It’s a mystery to us.” But one thing is sure: the discovery of the Aquiry civilization has a significant impact on biodiversity since all global climate models were based on the idea that the Amazon was virgin land, virtually unaltered by human action.