Ancient city in Ecuador faces encroachment from farms, roads

QUITO

Shielded by the jungle for hundreds of years, the remains of a massive 2,500-year-old network of Ecuadoran cities are being threatened by road and farm encroachment, researchers say.

Traces of an Amazonian "lost city" were first discovered in 1978, but the full extent of what is now believed to be the largest and oldest such urban expanse were only revealed last year with the help of laser mapping.

The vast site of more than 1,000 square kilometers lies deep in the Upano valley on the foothills of the Andes mountain range in eastern Ecuador.

It consists of ancient settlements of different sizes, connected by a complex system of roads.

Archeologists have also identified some 7,400 mounds in various shapes, made by human hands millennia ago. They stand up to four meters tall and five times as wide and are believed to have been the foundations of homes, or communal areas for rituals or festivals.

Some have already been damaged, wrongly thought by road developers to be natural formations that they could break through.

"There is an urgent need for a protection plan," said Spanish archeologist Alejandra Sanchez, who has been studying the site for a decade.

Beyond the road construction issue, Sanchez also described the risks posed by erosion, deforestation, and agriculture to the mounds.

The Upano River, cradle of the Indigenous culture of the same name, is also the victim of voracious mining, both legal and wildcat.

According to researchers who have studied the city network since the 1980s, the Upano people who built it had the political, economic, and religious organization typical of great civilizations. Construction on the mounds is thought to have begun between 500 BC and 300-600 AD.

Archaeologist Alden Yepez of the Catholic University told AFP that he believes the discoveries are only "the tip of the iceberg."