A recent discovery by a team led by Stéphen Rostain is reshaping how researchers think about the pre-Columbian Amazon.
The scientists from the French National Center for Scientific Research were able to use a type of laser-sensor technology called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to map a number of earthen mounds they had found in the Upano River Valley in Ecuador in 2015.
This allowed them to create a 3D model of the structures that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye due to the jungle’s thick vegetation, not to mention its inaccessibility.
