Questão de Língua Portuguesa

Huge ancient lost city found in the Amazon The discovery changes what we know about the history of people living in the Amazon. The houses and plazas in the Upano area in eastern Ecuador were connected by an astounding network of roads and canals. The area lies in the shadow of a volcano that created rich local soils but also may have led to the destruction of the society. While we knew about cities in the highlands of South America, like Machu Picchu in Peru, it was believed that people only lived nomadically or in tiny settlements in the Amazon. “This is older than any other site we know in the Amazon. We have a Eurocentric view of civilisation, but this shows we have to change our idea about what is culture and civilisation,” says Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, who led the research. “It changes the way we see Amazonian cultures. Most people picture small groups, probably naked, living in huts and clearing land – this shows ancient people lived in complicated urban societies,” says co-author Antoine Dorison. The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists. A network of straight roads and paths connected many platforms, including one that extended 25 km (16 miles). Dr Dorison said these roads were the most striking part of the research. “The road network is very sophisticated. It extends over a vast distance, everything is connected. And there are right angles, which is very impressive,” he says, explaining that it is much harder to build a straight road than one that fits in with the landscape. The societies were clearly well-organised and interconnected and the Upano people living there probably mostly focussed on agriculture. <https://tinyurl.com/37cbjmbk> Acesso em: 20.01.2024. Adaptado.