LiDAR uncovers vast Aquiry civilization in Brazil's Amazon

Airborne LiDAR surveys covering more than 4,400 kilometres over Brazil’s Acre and Amazonas states revealed a far larger pre‑Columbian society than previously known. Researchers identified 432 earthwork structures, and extrapolated that the Aquiry civilization built between 24,000 and 30,000 geometric ditches, embankments and ceremonial enclosures across roughly 183,000 square kilometres – an area comparable to Syria.

The findings suggest the civilization flourished between about 600 BCE and AD 850, supporting an estimated 1.25 million to 3 million people at its peak. The earthworks, ranging from small one‑hectare sites to a fifty‑hectare complex, indicate sophisticated landscape engineering, agriculture and resource management, challenging the view of the Amazon as a sparsely populated wilderness. The research, published in *Nature*, underscores how much of Amazonia’s archaeological record remains hidden beneath dense forest canopy and may reshape models of the region’s historical ecology and demographic scale.