Valley of Lost Cities, 2,000 years old, found in Amazon

Archaeologists have discovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest, where at least 10,000 farmers lived about 2,000 years ago, Azernews reports, citing International Media Outlets.

Recent mapping using laser sensor technology has shown that these places were part of a dense network of settlements and connecting roads located in the wooded foothills of the Andes, which existed for about 1,000 years.
"It was a lost valley of cities," says archaeologist Stephen Rosten, who directs the research at France's National Center for Scientific Research.

According to researchers, the settlements were occupied by the Upano people between 500 BC and 300-600 AD - about the same time as the Roman Empire in Europe.

10,000 to 30,000 people lived in this place, says study co-author, archaeologist Antoine Dorison. This is comparable to the estimated population of Roman-era London.

"This indicates a very dense occupation and an extremely complex society," says Michael Heckenberger, an archaeologist at the University of Florida, who was not involved in the study. "This is really a unique phenomenon for the region in terms of how early it is."

According to Jose Iriarte, an archaeologist from the British University of Exeter, the Incas and Maya built houses out of stone, but people in the Amazon usually did not have this material - they built out of mud, which in turn required a lot of work.