After intense research on ancient riverside stories, added to long boat trips in the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian archaeologist Márcio Amaral, a researcher at the Mamirauá Institute in Amazonas, discovered 13 islands created artificially by indigenous tribes. According to the study released on Monday, 20, all structures are located in the region where the Içá River flows, in Alto Solimões, in the Amazon.
The buildings, estimated to be over 500 years old, called “grounded” by the locals, were built next to dugouts, which are depressed areas, from which the material for the construction of the islands was removed, hundreds of years ago. The structures are attributed to the ancient omáguas, indigenous people of the Tupi trunk who also figure in the ancient chronicles of Spanish and Portuguese navigators who passed through the region between the 16th and 19th centuries. approximately 1,500 individuals in Brazilian territory.
Each of the islands were built in the pre-colonial and colonial periods, has an area between one and three hectares and is between six and seven meters high in relation to the surrounding flooded area. It is speculated that they were made in strategic regions for food, where many fish, turtles and alligators are found. And, according to the scientists, without the design of the structures, the area where they are would be completely flooded, preventing traditional crops from the Amazon, such as açaí.
Similar structures have already been found in the Amazon – on Marajó Island, in Pará, and in Llanos de Mojos, in Bolivia. In the Middle Solimões, one landfill was found in 2018, while three more in the Jutaí river and five more in the Japurá and Auati-Paraná rivers were discovered.
