Vast network of lost ancient cities discovered in the Amazon

Archaeologists have discovered the largest and oldest network of pre-Hispanic cities ever found in the Amazon rainforest, revealing a 2,500-year-old lost civilization of farmers.

The vast site, which covers more than 1,000 square kilometers, was long hidden by the jungle in the Upano valley on the foothills of the Andes mountain range in eastern Ecuador.

However, a French-led team of researchers have used laser-mapping technology taken from above, as well as archaeological excavations, to uncover 20 settlements, including five large cities, connected by roads.

Stephen Rostain, an archaeologist at France's CNRS research center and the lead author of a new study, told AFP it was like discovering "El Dorado."

The scale of this urban development, which includes earthen homes, ceremonial buildings and agricultural draining, has never been seen before in the Amazon, Rostain said.

"It is not just a village, but an entire landscape that has been domesticated," he said.

Rostain said he detected the first traces of this lost civilization 25 years ago, when he spotted hundreds of mounds in the area.

In 2015, his team of researchers flew over the region using laser technology called Lidar, which allowed the scientists to peer through the forest canopy as "if we had cut down all the trees," Rostain said.

'Like New York'

They found more than 6,000 earthen mounds, rectangular earthen platforms which served as the base of homes for the "Upano people."

On the floors, the researchers found "all the domestic remains one would see in a home - fireplaces, large ceramic jars for beer made out of corn, grinding stones, seeds, tools," Rostain said.

Remarkably, the cities are all crisscrossed by...