Lost Cities of the Amazon

[MikeWaters]

Was watching National Geographic channel. Had a doc with the same title as the title of my post.

Essentially the doc disputes the dogma that the Amazon was always sparsely inhabited because of the poor soil not being able to sustain a lot of people.

They talk about the account written by the priest that went with Orellana down the Amazon and how he talked about huge numbers of people, many thousands, that was dismissed as fabrications at the time. Was republished at the end of the 19th century, and is now being reexamined and has been given new credence.

Now they have discovered that there were cities with thousands of people. They show an ancient ditch that they have discovered was used as a wall (timbers placed in ditch). There were many settlement/cities all connected by elaborate systems of roads.

In the doc, it says that it is very well possible that in pre-Columbian times, the Amazon basin held "millions" of people.

Where are the stone buildings and towers and temples? There are none. Because in that area there is no stone to quarry.

Archaeologists and sociologists had assumed that the current iteration of native society in the Amazonian basin was a direct continuation of ancient civilization there, but that appears to be incorrect.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.co.../3819/Overview

Research published in Science Magazine:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077413/