This could be considered a lost technology.
It's impossible. It's impossible.
Twenty years from now, all the forest will disappear.
I was arriving in Rio Branco by jet, commercial jet.
-Sitting in the window seat. -Yeah.
-And looking at the environment like this. -Yes.
Like this.
And then I see a big circle.
My God. What's this? Huh?
-And the jet is so fast. Gone. -Yeah.
Disappear.
Fantastic design. And so big.
-So enormous. Enormous. -Yeah. Yeah.
Ah, look. Another one.
-Yes. They're everywhere. -Everywhere.
Another one here.
-The first one was a famous archaeologist. -Yes.
-I showed her the picture… -Yeah. Yeah.
…and she looked and said, "Where is it? In the Amazon? It's impossible."
It's impossible? Look at the picture.
Help me, please.
-I don't know what this is. -Yes.
I think so because many of these are so complicated.
It is necessary to have pre-planned how to do it and how to organize it.
This area is full of roads.
-Hunters and gatherers do not build roads. -Mm-hmm.
They don't have any need for that.
It needs already society with a much more higher level of thinking.
-I see. - And relationships between each other.
-So that is a really complex society. -Yeah.
No, it was totally a… surprise for us.
From Tequinho, we found 40,000, uh, shards of ceramics.
-Most of it is of high quality… -Right.
-…and polychrome ceramics. -Right.
Yes, normally polychrome ceramic is considered to be part of civilization.
I think you're right because
this Geoglyph culture is exactly the same time
when the Greek culture had archaeological period
that has been called Geometric Greek period.
That's a very good question because we excavated up to one meter…
-Mm-hmm. -…and after that, the ceramic disappeared.
But then I noticed that the charcoal continued.
And we went down and down and down,
and then we started to take radiocarbon samples,
and finally we found that many of these sites
have been established already 10,000 years ago.
-From the deep past, exactly. -Yeah. Fascinating.
Our understanding stopped on the border of the forest,
and now we want to know what's there.
By using this system, we can clear the vegetation out
and get the results from the bottom.
And in that way, we can see the topography exactly.
We are going to fly at 80 meters.
That's good.
Maybe we can have about 100 to 200 points per square meter.
That's excellent.
The topography will be very precise.
These drones will change everything in archaeology.
The Apurinã are a people
whose origins are closely tied to nature, to the earth.
I am standing in a place
for which I have the utmost respect.
For us, it is a sacred place.
It wasn't made for war. It wasn't made for defense.
It was made to express something cultural.
So, we compare this here
as if it were a circle of the Apurinã
when they dance and pay homage to a deceased chief, a shaman,
to an important person from the village who has died.
We see this space as somewhere that would welcome us
once we have left the material world.
We surveyed the area using the LiDAR.
And you see the trees?
And now…