Our current understanding of the Amazon has greatly changed in recent years. Research has shown that the rainforest’s biodiversity and abundance are the product of both natural and human history, the result of people living there for at least 12,000 years. And it’s this last point that forms the basis for calls to protect the world’s greatest tropical rainforest not just as a natural treasure, but also as part of Brazil’s cultural heritage. That’s the view espoused by Eduardo Neves, an archaeology professor at the University of São Paulo, in a recent interview with Brazilian news monthly Piaui. “The forests are our pyramids,” he said. In a phone interview with Mongabay, Neves pressed the point: “We should use archaeological knowledge to help protect the Amazon ecosystem. By registering archaeological sites as national monuments, we want to keep the forest intact and allow the people living there to continue living there, as they offer the best possible protection against invaders.” Neves is one of the leading Brazilian archaeologists attempting to unveil the history of past civilizations in the Amazon. He’s worked for more than 30 years in the central and southwestern Brazilian Amazon, and in 2022 published a book about his findings, Sob os tempos do equinócio: Oito mil anos de história na Amazônia central (“Under the times of the equinox: 8,000 years of history in the central Amazon”; there’s no English translation yet of the book). Clusters of ancient drawings known as geoglyphs have been seen in the state of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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