Ancient Villages Laid Out Like Clock Face in Amazonia

Using a helicopter-based lidar mapping tool, an international team of scientists led by University of Exeter archaeologists has discovered a network of mound villages in the south-eastern portion of Acre State, Brazil, dating back to 1300-1700 CE.

Professor Iriarte and his colleagues used a lidar sensor integrated into an MD 500 helicopter to document architectural features below the forest canopy, revealing a more complex and spatially organised landscape than previously thought.

They documented over 35 ancient mound villages and dozens of roads, with many more predicted to still be hidden below the unexplored jungle.

The villages were composed of 3 to 32 mounds arranged in a circle, the diameter of which ranged from 40 m to 153 m with the area enclosed by the central plaza ranging from 0.12 to 1.8 ha.

“The circular mound villages are connected across the wider landscape through paired sunken roads with high banks that radiate from the village circle like the marks of a clock or the rays of the Sun,” the researchers explained.

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Image credit: Iriarte

Detail of a circular mound village called Dona Maria with ‘twin’ village.

Source / Image Courtesy

Image credit: Iriarte

Circular mound villages: (a) Fazenda Boa Esperança, (b) Karina, (c) Estrela do Norte I. Scale bar – 50 m.

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Ancient Amazonian villages built between AD 1300 to 1700 and laid out like a clock to possibly represent the Native American cosmos have been discovered in Brazil’s south Acre State.