Low-density urbanism in Amazonia

Abstract

What lies beneath the vast savannahs and forests of the Llanos de Moxos, in the lowland Bolivian Amazon? Join us for an exploration of the Casarabe culture (500-1400 AD), whose monumental settlements redefined what we know about pre-Columbian Amazonian societies. Using cutting-edge lidar technology, a vast engineered landscape of stepped platforms, U-shaped structures, and towering pyramids - hallmarks of low-density urbanism - has been revealed under the rainforest canopy by recent research. This sophisticated settlement system, occupying more than 4,500 km², includes multi-tiered urban centres connected by raised causeways and intricate water management infrastructures, suggesting a once thriving, sustainable relationship with the environment. These findings challenge long-held assumptions about tropical urbanism and reveal the Amazon as a hotspot of past cultural innovation.

UCL Institute of Archaeology Thematic Research Seminars Programme | Term I, 2024-25

The Term I seminar series will highlight thematic research looking at ‘Life Histories’ and ‘Human Planetary Transformations’. These are scheduled to be in-person events.

Seminars on ‘Life Histories’ will explore research related to areas including transition from hunting to herding; demographic instabilities in early farming societies; diet; health and variation in past populations; death and burial.

Those seminars on ‘Human Planetary Transformations’ will highlight research related to environmental transformations and sustainability; early human archaeology and evolution; domestication of animals and plants, human demography and migration. 

Wednesdays, doors open 4pm for a 4.10pm start

• 9 October: Reassessing Kura-Araxes pastoral practices and mobility in the Caucasus & Levant using zooarchaeology, ZooMS and stable isotope analysis - Gwen Maurer (Cardiff University)
• 16 October: Combining Bioarchaeology and Immunology to explore the disease burden of past populations - Katie Hemer & Thomas McDonnell (UCL)
• 23 October:  Death and burial in ancient Egypt: the role of black goo - Kate Fulcher (UCL)
• 30 October: What’s theoretical/ ethical/ political about writing people’s life stories archaeologically?  - John Robb (University of Cambridge) 

[6 November: Reading Week - no seminar]

• 13 November: Who’s transforming who? Nomads and metals at the dawn of the Silk Roads trade - Miljana Radivojevic (UCL)
• 20 November: Monumentality and Landscape: Case Studies in the Creation of Lineage and Genealogy from Early Medieval England - Andrew Reynolds (UCL)
• 27 November: The Archaeosphere - Matt Edgeworth (University of Leicester)
• 4 December: Revealing ancient cities: low-density urbanism in Amazonia - Carla Jaimes Betancourt (Bonn University)

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