Archaeology & History

Mystery surrounds Amazon's 'Stonehenge'

By T.K. Randall
December 16, 2016

Image: Amazon Rainforest in Tena, Ecuador
Credit: Jay / CC BY 2.0 (adapted) The idea that the Amazon has remained mostly untouched by human civilization save for the activities of a few nomadic tribes has been called in to question following the discovery of a megalithic stone monument in Brazil.

Thought to date back 1,000 years, these standing stones appear to have been erected by a civilization that lived in the region centuries before Europeans first arrived on the scene.

Brazil's Stonehenge: Amazon's indigenous peoples may have been far more sophisticated than assumed by archaeologists https://t.co/qnw0Nc0R4V pic.twitter.com/RFeKXUvAJ6

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 15, 2016

This, coupled with the recent discovery of land carvings, fortified settlements and complex road networks, has suggested that the Amazon may have once been home to over 10 million people."We're starting to piece together the puzzle of the Amazon Basin's human history, and what we're finding in Amapa is absolutely fascinating," said archaeologist Mariana Cabral.

The monument was discovered by Lailson Camelo da Silva, a cattle ranch foreman who stumbled across the stones while he was razing trees to convert an area of rainforest in to new pasture.

"I had no idea that I was discovering the Amazon's own Stonehenge," he said.

Source: New York Times

Tags: Stonehenge, Brazil, Amazon