Brian, aka The Irishman, YeLPar devotee and sometime contributor to and commentator on this blog, sent me through a couple of interesting links today. They deal with some amazing geoglyphs that archaeologists have uncovered in the Amazon jungle. Exciting stuff and yet at the same time extremely sad. You see, we wouldn't know about these if it wasn't for the felling/clearing of the Amazon rain forest. Deforestation has exposed the glyphs to us. and so we find ourselves torn between excitement and despair (and I for one don't exaggerate with those terms).
They are believed to have been carved into the forest floor 700 years ago and whilst the jungle was at the height of its' growth, incredible. Over 300 found so far and no idea what they were for. Excellent fodder for all of the nutters out there who will now pronounce it a celestial airport for space travel or something of the like.
This link pinpoints them in google earth if you have it installed, it's well worth the look and in Brians' words "the one marked placemark 3 is superb and you can also see the extent of the deforestation, which is stretching further and further into the heart of the rain forest"
Let's hope they aren't presented with anymore examples anytime soon.
PS: I bet you start looking around on google maps to see if you can find some on your own, cos I did.
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