Lidar in the Amazon basin

[Duncan Head]

More on intensive pre-Columbian settlement networks:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/06/ancient-garden-cities-amazon-indigenous-technologies-archaeology-lost-civilisations-environment-terra-preta

[Imperial Dave]

absolutely love this kind of thing...!

[Ian61]

Ditto.

[Cantabrigian]

The regularity certainly suggests a degree of planning, which tends to imply a colonial origin for the settlements rather than growing organically from existing populations.

I wonder what happened to the indigenous population?

[Keraunos]

The regularity certainly suggests a degree of planning, which tends to imply a colonial origin for the settlements rather than growing organically from existing populations.

I wonder what happened to the indigenous population?

Possibly what seems to have happened in post Roman Britain or the forests of what is now Russia when the Northmen came in - replacement of the old 'elite' but most people remain in place and the new 'elite' merges into the pool over time?

[tadamson]

I suspect that 'colonial' is not the best word to use.
Clearly there is a level of control, but this is probably pre-existing and almost certainly fairly local.

Clearing a 'city' and rebuilding it was widespread practice across multiple cultures.