Archaeologists find vast network of Amazon villages laid out like the cosmosComments
masque wrote (edited )
They're "laid out like the cosmos" in the sense that they use basic geometric shapes, which the cosmos also does, I guess?
The distinctive and consistent way Indigenous people arranged these villages suggests that they had specific social models for the way they organized their communities, the researchers said. It's even possible that this configuration was meant to represent the cosmos, they noted
The first explanation seems perfectly fine. When future generations discover grid-based city layouts like Manhattan, are they going to wonder whether they were "meant to represent the divine perfection of the Cartesian grid" or something?
Hibiscus_Syrup OP wrote
I see! Y'know, I didn't read this one and just thought it was similar to another I had read, iirc where a kid had discovered a ruin by mapping the cosmos onto some buildings and nothing that there should then be other buildings in certain other positions.
masque wrote (edited )
I skimmed through the paper (available here) and the only mention of the cosmos is "The uniform spatial layout of the mound villages, like many contemporaneous ring villages of the Neotropics, are likely to represent physical representations of the Native American cosmos", citing two sources that I won't bother to track down. So there may well be evidence supporting this claim, but it's not in this particular paper.
As usual, I don't blame the researchers at all for the pop science headline that for some reason emphasizes a single off-hand comment in the paper.
Glenn_carbon wrote
Cliff paintings now this. Always something interesting going on in amazonian history.
Hibiscus_Syrup OP wrote
The Amazon is a Man-Made Food Forest, Researchers Discover is probably my favourite.
BrowseDuringClass1917 wrote
Ridiculous clickbait. Personally l find it plenty interesting that there was a connected network of villages in the Amazon. Hate that “news” (lol) sites like this have to sensationalize literally everything they put out.
minkim244 wrote
agree. it made me a bit angry, just because somebody wanted to get more clicks
Hibiscus_Syrup OP wrote
Whatever the fuck people were doing back then over there, they seem amazing. I wish I knew more about it.