Research team finds new evidence of Amazonian civilization

Research team finds new evidence of Amazonian civilizationWednesday
September 14, 2:27 PM (Kyodo News)
A joint Japanese-Bolivian research team has completed the first stage
of a three-year investigation that aims to shed light on a little-known
high culture that existed in the present-day Bolivian Amazon.
The investigation, named "Project Mojos," is headed by Katsuyoshi
Sanematsu, a professor of anthropology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo.
In an interview Wednesday, Sanematsu, 56, told Kyodo News that the
team, composed of four Japanese researchers and four Bolivian
researchers, succeeded in finding hundreds of archaeological artifacts
during a monthlong excavation that ended earlier this month.
"It is very unusual for such a large number of artifacts to be found at
a single site in the region, especially in an excavation of such a
short time," he said.
The so-called ancient Mojos culture is presumed to have existed in the
Bolivian Amazon for thousands of years before the arrival of the
Spanish conquistadores.

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In the Llanos de Mojos, a large, seasonally flooded plain in the
northeastern part of Bolivia, there remains abundant evidence of this
ancient culture. Most prominent are 20,000 man-made hills or mounds,
5,000 kilometers of straight roads, a large network of canals, and
2,000 artificial lakes.

When considering the enormous scale of such earthworks, the ancient
Mojos culture could rightly be called a civilization newly found that
existed in the land of ancient Amazonia, he said.
According to Sanematsu, the existence of the culture has been known
since Swedish ethnologist Erland Nordenskiold first made some
excavations in the region in the early 20th century. However, it has
been little studied up until recently, being overshadowed by the
glamour of the neighboring Andean civilization.
The excavation was carried out at an artificial hill (loma) called Loma
Pancho Roman located about 35 km east of the city of Trinidad, capital
of Beni department.
It is a medium-sized loma with a height of about 9 meters and total
area of about 5 hectares.
During the monthlong excavation the team unearthed 12 human skeletons,
12 large funeral urns and one small funeral urn containing human
remains.
Also found were burial artifacts such as beads and stone ornaments,
many shells, and numerous pottery and pottery artifacts. Earthenware
urns are one of the identifying traits of the ancient Mojos culture.
The refined burial artifacts found inside the urns indicate the high
level of culture and technology which the ancient residents possessed,
according to the Japanese researcher.
Sanematsu said in the future he aims to investigate other lomas in the
region more thoroughly and with better equipment, as well as other
massive earthworks such as the straight roads, ship canals and
artificial lakes.
The lomas, testaments to the civil engineering prowess of the period,
served as islands during flooding and were connected by a network of
straight roads and canals, some of which are also visible from
satellites.
Sanematsu said a fascinating characteristic of the ancient Mojos
culture is the sheer scale by which the ancient people attempted to
alter their natural environment.
"It is clear that they did it to improve their living conditions, to
establish a complex society in the flood plain of the Amazon. But the
important thing is that they succeeded in accomplishing their goals
without destroying nature," he said.
"I'd like to know how it was done, the technology and the wisdom which
made this feat possible," he added.
Sanematsu, author of numerous books on ancient Central and South
American cultures, returned to Japan last week with the Japanese
members of the team and a Japanese television crew that filmed the
entire excavation.
He plans to return to the Bolivian Amazon next year to conduct further
research with the Project Mojos team, which is supported by the
National Direction of Archaeology and the Bolivian government, as well
as by the local Japanese embassy.

source: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050914/kyodo/d8cjs5kg2.html