Unchecked deforestation destroying evidence of lost Amazon civilisation

Amazon forest in the Madidi national park in Bolivia. Deforestation in the region is destroying evidence of pre-Columbian communities. Photograph: Toniflap/Alamy

At midday on the road into Grünland, a Mennonite colony in the Bolivian department of Beni, the only sound is a distant chainsaw.

On either side, strips of deforested land extend into the distance. Underfoot, the soil is scattered with shards of ceramic and bone: remnants of the pre-Columbian peoples that this part of the Bolivian Amazon, known as the Llanos de Mojos, once supported.