Pro tip: I think the whole 'lost city' thing in the Amazon is getting too much hype

Last month, I read a new paper from a team in Brazil that questioned the laser mapping evidence for those huge ancient settlements. They argued the patterns could be natural ridges, not city grids, and the carbon dates from the area are all over the place. Has anyone else dug into the raw lidar data and felt the story is being pushed too fast?

3 comments

3 Comments

faith_perez1mo ago

Yeah, @noah_palmer42 has a point, but is it really that big a deal?

noah_palmer421mo ago

Honestly, that tracks. I saw a video deep dive pointing out how the "plazas" match old river channels perfectly. Feels like the cool find is racing ahead of the boring proof.

pat3601mo ago

Wait, did that paper talk about the soil samples at all? I mean, if the carbon dates are all over the place, maybe the whole area was used on and off for a really long time, not all at once like a single city. It just seems like they're jumping to the biggest, coolest answer before ruling out the slower, messier one.