Recent forest clearance in the Amazon basin has led to some unexpected discoveries. It had been thought that indigenous populations in the area had been limited in number and seperated into discrete family groups. However the forest clearance revealed large areas of archaeological remains. These had been spotted using satellite imagery on google earth, and were in the form of large regularly shaped ditched enclosures that suggested that the local population was far higher and much better organised than previously thought. What is also interesting is that carbon dating and pottery fragments have suggested that these societies were thriving 2000 years ago, and that high quality pottery use began far earlier than previously thought.
It is of further interest that these enclosures are very reminiscent of early bronze age european enclosures, and it appears that many of the burial practices may well have been similar with inhumation of cremated remains in burial jars. This is not to suggest that there is a common link at this period but it may suggest that the development of these ideas may have followed a parallel route, which combined with osteo-archaeology evidence from intact burials showing that the indigenous peoples were at least phenotypically similar to early europeans suggests a different migration path to that usually suggested for north american indigenous tribes which is that they are descended from mongolian/siberian types migrating across the Bering sea during an ice age.
It does make on wonder what the real migration paths were, and indeed whether intercontinental travel was established far earlier than previously postulated. Certainly when we consider the very early settlement of both Australia and Sounth America, now thought to be 60000 years ago at least, it lends weight to this argument. It will be interesting to see how these latest discoveries are interpreted and what difference if any this will make to our understanding of homo sapiens early history....
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