Amazonian Ruins Reveal Ancient ‘Garden Urbanism’

A set of newly unearthed ancient ruins reveal a unique style of ‘garden urbanism,’ writes Kiona N. Smith in Scientific American.

The site, in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, features “more than 6,000 earthen platforms that once supported houses and communal buildings in 15 urban centers, set amid vast tracts of carefully drained farmland and linked by a network of roads.” The layout is unique to Amazonia, with the nearest similar design seen in Central America. 

According to Smith, “Nearly all the open space between communities would have been covered with hundreds of hectares of fields, bordered by shallow drainage ditches that fed into deeper canals. That close link between the fields and the urban centers of the Upano Valley is a unique hallmark of the landscape and the people who built it.” The site, known as Sangay, was likely built around 2,500 years ago.

Researchers say the Huapula, who still live in the region, moved into the site after it was abandoned between roughly 300 and 600 C.E. to take advantage of the existing infrastructure.