‘Mind blowing’ ancient settlements uncovered in the Amazon

The southwest corner of the Amazon Basin was once the site of complex urban settlements built by ancient civilisations. Researchers used a laser remote-sensing technology called lidar to map land inhabited by the Casarabe culture, which existed around AD 500 to 1400 in what is now Bolivia. Observations from the air reveal that Casarabe people lived in densely populated centres, featuring 22-metre-tall earthen pyramids, that were encircled by kilometres of elevated roadways. They also had large water-management infrastructure made of canals and reservoirs.