BOLIVIA
September/October 2022
BOLIVIA: A lidar survey in southwestern Amazonia allowed researchers to glimpse the area’s surprisingly well-developed pre-Hispanic urban landscape for the first time. Lasers penetrated thick vegetation in the area, known as the Llanos de Moxos, and revealed at least 26 settlements built by members of the Casarabe culture between 500 and 1400. The largest of these settlements spread across nearly 800 acres. This now largely hidden landscape once had a network of causeways, canals, building platforms, and pyramids.
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A pregnant tortoise, sunken Spanish cargo, Maya orthodontics, Mongol summer plans, and the first fruit farmers
A memento left along the way
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