Sort of out of my neighborhood...

 Amazing cities of the Amazon jungle...

Kunguints site, Upano Valley, Ecuador. Dug streets cross the urban area where they are bordered by complexes of rectangular platforms arranged around low squares. The site is framed by two rivers.

Complex of rectangular earth platforms of the Nijiamanch site along the cliff edge of the Upano riverbed, Ecuador. Image by S. Rostain.

I'm quite excited to see another civilization which existed!

If someone were to ask you what you know about the history of the Amazon, what would you say? Archaeologist Stéphen Rostain, who knows a thing or two about the region, insists in a recent profile that the answer is “nothing, because the history that we think we know is wrong.” In a study recently published in Science, Rostain chronicles a 30-year research project and the astonishing discovery of a 2,500-year-old metropolis in the Ecuadorian rainforest, a “lost valley of cities.”

While previous expeditions to the area have documented large mounds and monuments throughout the area, the enormity and complexity of this find exceeded expectations with the discovery of thousands of houses, complex roads, plazas, ceremonial sites, and drainage canals. More than 6,000 rectangular earthen platforms, which were likely homes and communal buildings, are connected by a vast and sophisticated road network connecting 15 urban centers, surrounded by terraced agricultural fields.

Rostain and his colleagues used aerial Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, to scan an ancient network of cities extending across 115 square miles in the Amazon. Built around 500 B.C.E. and occupied for hundreds of years until the population began to migrate away between 300 and 600 C.E., the Upper Amazon site’s immense scale places it in league with comparable Maya urban systems recently found in Mexico and Guatemala.

You may also enjoy exploring Vinicius Peripato and Luiz Aragão’s recent survey of earthworks in Brazil that suggest thousands still hidden in the forest. (via Kottke)

Source: Colossal In the World's Largest Rainforest... 

My guess is that the roads were worn down by feet, animals and human. There's no evidence of wheeled vehicles, beyond some toys, in the "new world" before Europeans came there. But it isn't logical to me that roadways would be built lower than houses...though maybe they were shallow canals. There are many more questions than answers!

Today's quote: 

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war between princes. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)