Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight.
Speaker 2: I'm Marina Sante and I'm Roger Bassic. Spotlight uses a
Speaker 2: special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people
Speaker 2: to understand no matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 1: The Upano Valley is a place in southern Ecuador. For
Speaker 1: as long as most people can remember, it was covered
Speaker 1: by the Amazon Rainforest. Few people lived there, but the
Speaker 1: forest held a secret. Below the trees was a group
Speaker 1: of cities. No one knew they were there for over
Speaker 1: a thousand years.
Speaker 2: Today's spotlight is on these hidden cities of the Upano Valley.
Speaker 2: A recent discovery. These cities change the way that experts
Speaker 2: see the peoples of the Amazon. They display a special
Speaker 2: culture that is new in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: The cities of the Opano Valley were first discovered in
Speaker 1: late twenty twenty three. Experts knew that there were structures
Speaker 1: in the area, However, they did not know how many
Speaker 1: or how large the structures were. To find out, they
Speaker 1: examined the ground with a technology called lidar. Lidar uses
Speaker 1: late to measure the distance between objects. An airplane can
Speaker 1: examine the ground with lidar. It can make a very
Speaker 1: precise map of what is there.
Speaker 2: The lidar examination showed a large complex of cities. There
Speaker 2: were temples, houses, and roads. The structures were not made
Speaker 2: from stone like the other cities in South America. The
Speaker 2: buildings were dirt hills. Some of these buildings were created
Speaker 2: by moving earth. Some were once hills that the people
Speaker 2: there shaped into structures. The lidar examination discovered over six
Speaker 2: thousand of these structures in the area.
Speaker 1: Experts estimates that these structures are thousands of years old.
Speaker 1: They believe that the culture that builds them lived in
Speaker 1: the area in five hundred BCE. They deserted the cities
Speaker 1: around six hundred CE. This means that the cities were
Speaker 1: in use for one thousand years. This is longer than
Speaker 1: most other cultures in the area, and it is a
Speaker 1: longer time than even the Inca or Maya cultures.
Speaker 2: One of the most interesting parts about these cities is
Speaker 2: their roads. Most roads in ancient times followed the landscape.
Speaker 2: They went around hills because it is easier to build
Speaker 2: that way. But the roads in the Upano Valley are
Speaker 2: perfectly straight. They go over and even sometimes through hills.
Speaker 2: The people there dug some of them as deep as
Speaker 2: five meters. This is a difficult thing to do even today.
Speaker 1: Stephen Roustan is an archaeologist at the National Center for
Speaker 1: Scientific Research in France. An archaeologist is someone who studies
Speaker 1: ancient cultures. He led the studies that discovered the Ipano
Speaker 1: Valley cities. He spoke to the British Broadcasting Cooperation about
Speaker 1: the mystery of these roads.
Speaker 3: Why would you build these straight roads five meters deep?
Speaker 3: You can easily walk through the hills. I think they
Speaker 3: built them to mark their identity. They are symbolic roads.
Speaker 2: The people of the Upano Valley also constructed their cities
Speaker 2: in a unique way. In almost every culture, cities are centralized,
Speaker 2: a concentrated group of people live within closely built structures.
Speaker 2: People who grow food, such as farmers, live outside cities,
Speaker 2: but in the Upano Valley civilization, farms were part of
Speaker 2: the city. Large pieces of farmland separated different home groups,
Speaker 2: but the buildings are still close enough to be called
Speaker 2: a single city. Other civilizations pushed the environment outside of
Speaker 2: their cities, but the people of the Upano Valley built
Speaker 2: their cities within it.
Speaker 1: It is difficult to know what the society of the
Speaker 1: people of the Upanova was like, but evidence suggests that
Speaker 1: they had a complex society. Again, Rastan spoke to the
Speaker 1: British Broadcasting Cooperation about what the people may have been like.
Speaker 3: The people living in these societies did not move around.
Speaker 3: They were not lost in the rainforest looking for food.
Speaker 3: They were not the small tribes of the Amazon we
Speaker 3: know today. They were a highly specialized people. They were
Speaker 3: earth movers, engineers, farmers, fishermen, priests, chiefs or kings. It
Speaker 3: was a layered society. It was a specialized society. It
Speaker 3: was something like ancient Rome.
Speaker 2: This picture of a cultured society is quite different from
Speaker 2: the stereotypes of Amazonian people. Often people portray Native Amazonian
Speaker 2: people as lesser than they are, or they believe that
Speaker 2: they are less intelligent than others because they live by
Speaker 2: hunting and gathering their food. Historians sometimes backed up this
Speaker 2: unfortunate way of thinking because no one found a complex civilization.
Speaker 2: Some did not think these native people capable of one
Speaker 2: people wishing to take native land use this as an excuse,
Speaker 2: but the Upano Valley civilization proves this false. Native Amazonians
Speaker 2: were just as capable of making complex societies as their
Speaker 2: western counterparts, and they did it in a unique way
Speaker 2: that let them.
Speaker 1: We do not know why the people of the Oparo
Speaker 1: Valley deserted their cities. There may have been wars or
Speaker 1: other conflicts, but experts believe it was probably due to
Speaker 1: natural disasters. The Aparno Valley lies below the Sungai volcano.
Speaker 1: The ash from the volcano would have helped the city's
Speaker 1: crops grow quickly, but volcanoes are dangerous to live near.
Speaker 1: A large explosion could have made it difficult to survive there.
Speaker 1: Ash from a large explosion could have made sunlights difficult
Speaker 1: to reach, and it may have killed off crops and
Speaker 1: even changed the climate.
Speaker 2: The discoveries of the cities of the Upano is an
Speaker 2: important scientific discovery. Until recently, experts believed there were no
Speaker 2: large cultures in the Amazon. They believed that the native
Speaker 2: population lived as they do today, as hunters and gatherers.
Speaker 2: This discovery shows that there is a larger history of
Speaker 2: the native population that we have yet to learn. That
Speaker 2: history is more interesting and complex than anyone could have
Speaker 2: understood before.
Speaker 1: The discovery is also important for understanding native culture. It
Speaker 1: shows that the native people of the Amazon could build cities,
Speaker 1: and they were able to do so in a special
Speaker 1: way instead of destroying the land. They created living spaces
Speaker 1: within nature. This may help us understand how to design
Speaker 1: cities in the future. It will be important to listen
Speaker 1: to native leadership when it comes to this. Manari Ushigua
Speaker 1: is a leader from the Sappara Nation. He spoke to
Speaker 1: the Art newspaper about the discovery of the Apparno Valley cities.
Speaker 4: These are holy sites. Protecting them is important. It is
Speaker 4: not just for our communities. These sites are important for
Speaker 4: all humanity. They contain secrets about climate change. These secrets
Speaker 4: can help the Amazonian environment, but they can also help
Speaker 4: the whole planet. We are suffering from the effects of
Speaker 4: unrestrained development and environmental district everywhere, but if we look
Speaker 4: to the forest and these ancient places, we can learn
Speaker 4: a lot.
Speaker 2: Do you know much about the people of the Amazon
Speaker 2: Does this discovery change your opinion? You can leave a
Speaker 2: comment on our website at www dot Spotlight English dot com.
Speaker 2: You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram,
Speaker 2: and x You can also get our programs delivered directly
Speaker 2: to your Android or Apple device through our free official
Speaker 2: Spotlight English app.
Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
Speaker 1: was Mitcheo Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted
Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. No AI or
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence was used in this program. Spotlight programs are written, voiced,
Speaker 1: and produced by real people for real people, no matter
Speaker 1: where in the world they live. This program is called
Speaker 1: The City That Rewrote History.
Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Goodbye,