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Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
Sun Nov 29, 2020, 12:57 AM Nov 2020

'The rock art gave me goosebumps': discovering the Amazon's lost archaeology


Archaeologist and palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi explains the significance of new discoveries in the rainforest

By Olivia Gavoyannis
November 26, 2020 8:06 pm
Updated November 27, 2020 5:13 pm



In Jungle Mystery, Ella Al-Shamahi explores the archaeology of the Amazon

Looking down from a helicopter on its dense carpet of trees, it’s easy to imagine that the Amazon rainforest has always been like this – wild and untameable. Historians always assumed that little more than a handful of small, nomadic tribes ever lived in this extraordinary environment.

But laser technology has been helping archaeologists search beneath the trees on airborne expeditions in Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia. They have uncovered the remains of ancient settlements from 2,000 years ago, which can then be examined on the ground.



The dense tropical forest of the Amazon has meant that many of its historic secrets have remained hidden (Photo: Getty)

Among those amazed by the new discoveries is British archaeologist and palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi. When she trekked into the forest, she was astonished to find giant geometric shapes carved into the landscape, ditches and roads that reveal a lost jungle metropolis, cultivated Brazil nut trees and what is now thought to be South America’s largest site of prehistoric artworks, with hundreds of intricate paintings.

. . .

Telling another side of history
Archaeology is shedding new light on the tribes’ oral histories of their once vast civilisations. “The idea that this story of the Amazon is not the story that we think it is blew my mind,” Al-Shamahi tells i. “History is often told by a group of people and we don’t necessarily listen to indigenous voices.

“We were able to show that some of their stories really line up. One indigenous group had stories of really large settlements, and when the archaeologists started looking… they found the same small settlements they live in now – but sprawled in a much larger landscape”.

More:
https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/jungle-mystery-lost-kingdoms-of-the-amazon-interview-ella-al-shamahi-archaeology-773932?ITO=newsnow
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'The rock art gave me goosebumps': discovering the Amazon's lost archaeology (Original Post) Judi Lynn Nov 2020 OP
That's interesting. 2naSalit Nov 2020 #1
Have noticed more attention seems to be turned toward the Americas lately. About time, isn't it? Judi Lynn Nov 2020 #2
I have always been interested in ancient civilizations... 2naSalit Nov 2020 #4
My interest was cultural anthropology wnylib Nov 2020 #5
I'm sure my interests were helped along by my... 2naSalit Nov 2020 #7
I had a German-born great aunt wnylib Nov 2020 #8
'Sistine Chapel of the ancients' rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest Judi Lynn Nov 2020 #3
Awesome. Wonder what the various wnylib Nov 2020 #6

2naSalit

(86,031 posts)
1. That's interesting.
Sun Nov 29, 2020, 01:30 AM
Nov 2020

I love archeology and my interests were Central and South America when I was taking classes in that sort of thing. And I was studying remote sensing when LiDAR was becoming a widespread tool. I was wondering how long it would take for researchers to bring it to the Amazon.

After reading the book, 1491, I am interested in what other locations can be identified. It appears there were many large civilizations in the Americas before Europeans found out it was here.

Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
2. Have noticed more attention seems to be turned toward the Americas lately. About time, isn't it?
Mon Nov 30, 2020, 05:57 AM
Nov 2020

Looks as if we may have some amazing revelations ahead if they keep increasing the focus on Brazil, as the rainforest, especially, seems to be disappearing due to the greed at the heart of mankind's worst impulses. A lot is going to become far more evident as the canopy starts being dragged down so idiots can steal the land. Hopefully, they won't get too far, and in the meantime, LIDAR is showing things only diligent searchers suspected long ago concerning many actual cities which existed on the ground which was overtaken by forest far later.

Really envy the time you have spent increasing your awareness in real civilizations lost earlier. That will serve you well as a stupendous foundation as we look forward to the opening to new information for the 21st century.

2naSalit

(86,031 posts)
4. I have always been interested in ancient civilizations...
Mon Nov 30, 2020, 09:18 AM
Nov 2020

Since I was quite young. My sister read Greek mythology to me for bedtime stories and she handed of several of her books when she was done with them when she was in college. When I finally went to college, I was well beyond my 20s, I got a degree in cultural anthropology. I was thinking of archaeology but I found culture and language more interesting and less physically demanding.

But I am a political animal too so I got another degree in political science. An odd duck but I found that most of my faculty friends all agreed that I was a true eclectic and I decided that it was something to be embraced. My interests are vast and I had a hard time deciding what to study, being older upon entry was any more helpful than being a teen right out of high school.



Now I'm retired, so I do a lot of armchair work these days.

wnylib

(21,146 posts)
5. My interest was cultural anthropology
Mon Nov 30, 2020, 11:49 AM
Nov 2020

and linguistics, too. By the time I got to full time (instead of piecemeal) courses, I was also well past my 20's, so I opted for a language major and anthropology minor, with a focus on Native American cultures. It was the specialty of the professor that I took most of my anthro courses from.

My interest started in childhood, with exposure to other cultures and their languages very early. Then my father, who grew up on a farm, showed me arrowheads and spearheads that he had found when plowing and saved. That same year in grade school, the My Weekly Reader publication for kids did an article on the excavation of King Tut's tomb. I was hooked. Archaeology and anthropology seemed to have everything to hold my interest - mystery, lost treasure, different ideas and ways of living and thinking.

2naSalit

(86,031 posts)
7. I'm sure my interests were helped along by my...
Mon Nov 30, 2020, 01:22 PM
Nov 2020

Having spent most of my childhood in New England where I was exposed to many other languages and cultures including those in my own family, All grandparents spoke other languages from German to Finnish to Lithuanian. And then, when in grade school, we learned etymology of words as we learned them and also started reading and speaking French in the second grade. I was off to a good start from an early age, then I spent much of my first decades as an adult traveling all over the US and learned many dialects of American English, it's quite a thing.

It's a set of topics that still hold my interest through all these decades, fascinating and mysterious all at once.

wnylib

(21,146 posts)
8. I had a German-born great aunt
Mon Nov 30, 2020, 03:10 PM
Nov 2020

Last edited Tue Dec 1, 2020, 08:14 AM - Edit history (1)

living with us in my childhood. She had some Hungarian friends who knew German and they used to sit on our front porch speaking German although they were all fluent in English. There were older Italians in our neighborhood who had come to the US around the same time as Aunt Emma and her Hungarian friends - late 1800's and early 1900's. They sat on their front porches speaking Italian. Felt like I needed a passport to walk down the street.

My father's mother was mixed, English, Seneca, and Mohawk. She died when I was 2 but my aunts told me about her and showed me Native crafts her grandmother had made and taught her to make. When my grandfather started dating, he had a long term relationship with a Jewish woman who was at all our family gatherings. The first time we met her was at our traditional huge family Christmas party at the farm. She explained Hannukah to us and handed out Hannukah gelt (chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil) to all the grandchildren.

When I learned to read and saw words I didn't understand, my father showed me how to use a dictionary. A few years later, when I asked what the stuff in parentheses after words meant, my mother explained that it told where the word originated. So I read those every time, too, along with the section on language families. Probably the only kid who read dictionaries as a pasttime.


I took German and Latin in high school to have a basis for most European languages, and Spanish in college.

Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
3. 'Sistine Chapel of the ancients' rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest
Mon Nov 30, 2020, 06:04 AM
Nov 2020

Dalya Alberge
Sun 29 Nov 2020 05.00 EST

Tens of thousands of ice age paintings across a cliff face shed light on people and animals from 12,500 years ago


One of the world’s largest collections of prehistoric rock art has been discovered in the Amazonian rainforest.

Hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients”, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 years ago across cliff faces that stretch across nearly eight miles in Colombia.

Their date is based partly on their depictions of now-extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that hasn’t roamed South America for at least 12,000 years. There are also images of the palaeolama, an extinct camelid, as well as giant sloths and ice age horses.

These animals were all seen and painted by some of the very first humans ever to reach the Amazon. Their pictures give a glimpse into a lost, ancient civilisation. Such is the sheer scale of paintings that they will take generations to study.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chapel-of-the-ancients-rock-art-discovered-in-remote-amazon-forest






This video is from Colombia but I'm shoving it in here as it is beautiful!

wnylib

(21,146 posts)
6. Awesome. Wonder what the various
Mon Nov 30, 2020, 12:01 PM
Nov 2020

designs and wavy line patterns in between the animal depictions are for. Just decorative, or do they have some meaning? Some of the patterns boxed inside squares remind me of sketches I do in planning a scarf or afghan to crochet.

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