Ancient Builders of the Amazon

Recent discoveries in archaeology are exploding the myth of the Amazon as a primeval wilderness, revealing traces of ancient civilizations that flourished for centuries, with populations numbering in the millions.

Ancient paintings on rock walls feature human figures and animals of today’s rainforest, like deer, tapirs, and jaguars. But they also appear to show animals that went extinct thousands of years ago.

The pyramid was built over 5,000 years ago, even before the pyramids of Egypt and Mesopotamia, a time when archeologists had believed the Amazon was populated only by hunter-gatherers.