00:00What if the Amazon rainforest once hid a civilisation of millions?
00:04Around 2000 years ago, an ancient society sometimes referred to as the Akiri
00:09may have built enormous communities deep inside the Amazon,
00:13and they left something incredible behind.
00:16Hidden beneath the forest are giant earthworks shaped like circles, squares, octagons and even pentagrams.
00:23Some are larger than 60 football fields with ditches reaching around 40 feet wide and 16 feet deep.
00:30For years, most of them were almost impossible to see because the jungle had completely covered them.
00:35Then researchers used lidar, planes fired millions of laser pulses through tiny gaps in the trees,
00:42allowing scientists to digitally remove the forest and reveal the landscape underneath.
00:47Suddenly, ancient structures started appearing everywhere.
00:52Researchers believe thousands, possibly tens of thousands,
00:55of these earthworks could still be hidden across the Amazon.
00:59But around 850 to 950 CE, many of these sites appear to have been abandoned.
01:05Why? No one knows for sure.
01:07And that may be the biggest mystery of all,
01:10because the Amazon might not have been an untouched wilderness.
01:13It may once have been home to enormous complex societies that are only now being rediscovered.
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