Around 800 years ago the Amazon rainforest was home to settlements that rivaled the small city-states of ancient Greece in size and sophistication. In a study published in the August 29 issue of Science, historical anthropologist Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida describes two large prehistoric settlement clusters in the Xingu basin in Brazil. Each cluster comprised several walled towns, perhaps housing up to 1,000 residents each, with a large plaza that served as both a burial ground for the ruling elite and the hub for ritual ceremonies. Roads going outward in the cardinal directions (to the east, west, north, and south) led to smaller satellite towns, many of which were connected to fishponds and agricultural sites. “The smaller settlements,” Heckenberger explains, “are almost like neighborhoods of the core area. You could jog from one to the other in about 10 minutes.”
Heckenberger discovered the Xingu settlements when the ...
