Would you clear more of the Amazon for hidden signs of past civilization?

"Finnish archaeologist digs up ancient civilization in Brazil"
Source

The clearing of the Amazon rainforest has revealed mysterious patterns in the earth. The large-scale patterns are best visible from the air, where Finnish archaeologist Martti Pärssinen takes pictures of them.

Following a recent news event quoted above I was left pondering the following question. Is it worth clearing more of the Amazon forest to bring further hidden clues of past civilization(s) to light or does the environmental damage outweigh the research benefit?



In recent years you may have seen similar headlines, they seem to be on the rise. Yet as the snapshot from a Discovery article in 2010 reveals these discoveries tend to happen after environmental degradation.

Who would've thought deforestation had an upside?

- Snapshot from 2010 Discovery article

No absolutely NOT

As technology gets better, we will have better techniques to read the landscape without killing everything on top of it. Just look at how we can solve crime from 20 years ago using modern techniques.

This is an easy question for me with one of those answers I can already hear a collective groan go up for. lol...

Yes and No.

No, first, that NO Jungle should be clear cut back just to explore ABR, to play on the English tourism phrase. 'Another Bloody Ruin'. When it comes down to it, the civilizations of South America and across our deep past numbered very high for people. very diverse in total number there have been and all over that landmass outside high elevation ridge lines ...and I think of broken Nazca lines that span modern day ridge lines ..and think even that may not be a rule to go by.

Yes...IF preliminary work shows VERY GOOD reason to think it's more than an old collection of stone and dried mud brick, forming yet another routine settlement from some point in the distant past? If they come across something that makes the site meaningful for index to the field or discoveries that add more than lines to the endless index of "See example..."? Well, then yes... Jungle will grow back, if we even want it to...depending on the importance of the site.

The idea we just hack and slash away at nature because someone with a school/research budget shows up and says "I want to see THAT ruin! Cut me a path!" is absurd...and those people ought to be handed a machete, pointed in the right direction and told...alone...to hack away until they drop dead.

for something like what was shown in the op no.

but if they found a city or another pyramid yes, reason i say this when the city or pyramid was built the area was cleared. the only reason it jungle or rainforest now is because, they were abandoned and or forgotten.

reply to post by MysteriousHusky


No, enough has already been destroyed.

reply to post by MysteriousHusky


I think we have enought mysteries to solve already, what the hell can we gain by finding out if the "youmeyoume" tribe lived and became extinct in the middle of a jungle. and most likely with these images we will now hear how UFO's were passing by one sunny strawberry day, and decided to draw us a picture on the ground 10 miles wide or some such gunk....
apart from that, it is logical to assume peoples were present for many thousands of years in the jungles and will have left evidence as well as their mother in law behind for the rest of us to uuuuh and awwww over.. what a pretty necklace made from monkeys eyeballs... wonder how they made them so hard and solid... ahhhhh
leave the jungle alone, and if someone wants to do something to it..PLANT MORE TREES you dumb humans.....

God dam it, leave the rain forest alone. Its not even worth considering destroying more of the lungs of the planet just to satisfy a small scientific curiosity.

reply to post by MysteriousHusky


No because there's already technology out there that can penetrate the canopy and see what's below.

archive.archaeology.org...

It's not necessary anymore.

If we keep deforesting and link to the past, it might turn out we find that these ancient civilizations died due to deforestation... so, yeah... it's worth it.

Absolutely not. I can think of no good reason to continue to destroy the forrests.

I mean, there are countless people on the planet today making mud huts and carving the earth into lines, and there is not a study being done on most, if any, of them. It's just something being done. Not important. Meaningless and pretty much just how some guys are living.

So we find more of the same, but it was done a few thousand years ago, it somehow makes it ok to fall over backwards ripping up the planet to have a look?

If it were to show, perhaps, something important that we are missing and looking for, then perhaps.

We don't even damage a mummified corpse too much lest we destroy it entirely, when we're trying to get at the root of how s/he lived. Why do we even think that destroying the planets respiratory system is at all tolerable to have a loo at what some guys did many years ago.

I don't cut off my skin to see how my bones move.

Man.. we're either put on this planet to severely destroy it, or if there is a reason for us being here, we've jumped the shark...

grey580
reply to post by MysteriousHusky

 

No because there's already technology out there that can penetrate the canopy and see what's below.

archive.archaeology.org...

It's not necessary anymore.

although that maybe good for preliminary surveying did you read this a little further down in your link

LiDAR results dwarf what was possible before, even through long-term archaeological projects, such as those at Tikal in Guatemala and Calakmul in Mexico, but the technology has drawbacks. It may not record the remains of completely perishable structures, which may leave only a few lines of stone, though our results suggest it can distinguish features less than a foot high. On-the-ground confirmation, traditional mapping, and excavation are still necessary to add information about how buildings were used, details,

so even if they can map it from the air in order to fully understand what was going on traditional methods have to be used, ie to go inside and see what is buried there, where they might even find the remains of kings and such.

I would say certain areas through extensive research that could perhaps yield more info into the mysterious realm of south America.
BUT!
at the same time, we have to consider what new species we may discover.

Was there a story a while ago I can't remember, about how google earth showed some areas of the amazon and revealed tribes that have yet to be contacted? I so wish I had the link to that article.

reply to post by MysteriousHusky


No, and never, there are method's such as radar that can see right through the tree's and God know's we have lost too much jungle by far already.

This is not new as you know but the Amazon has been shaped by the people whom live there and sadly new people bring new shapes to the world as hunter gatherer are displaced by cattle farmers whom strip the earth for short term gain and when the goodness is used up they move on to burn or fell more forrest for more short term gain.

There is going to be a disaster because of this that will effect every human being on the planet but our greedy corporate government's dont give a S*** about it.

No. Curiosity killed the cat,and all potential kittens thereafter... At some point it's gonna be our timeline dug up by future archeologists,and what a failure we are as caretakers of this planet. I cannot even fathom the priorities some put ahead of nature and humanity.

reply to post by MysteriousHusky


There is NO upside to deforestation. We didn't know there were hidden evidence of civilizations and that ignorance did nothing to harm our lives and the exposure of it does nothing to add to our lives while living natives are still killed and forced off their land.

Its not necessary any longer. An article in 2013 in Science Digest I believe has a story like this. They are now using LIDAR...laser guided looks thru the green to deliniate structures under the forest(s) canopy.

It works quite well because with LIDAR one knows exactly where to start excavating without damaging the area.

So internet search for LIDAR, excavations in South America etc.

As much as I am into lost civilizations I am more into preserving life.

The only thing in centra/south America worth destroying forest over is something that would fill in the lost history of this half of our planet. Since we were so nice as to destroy it to begin with.

It was a civilization that was so different to what existed in the rest of the world, there must be some interesting history for us to know about.

Clear cut? No. No tree should need cut down to look at ruins unless it's growing right out of the middle of a construction & it makes investigating it impossible as-is, or dangerous without reinforcing structurally after the removal. Another tree should be planted elsewhere to compensate for the removal(s).

If it's ground cover vegetation they need to clear, as much as possible should be transplanted elsewhere from the site.

Do not destroy, relocate. If it must be destroyed, replace elsewhere. I know digs are expensive, but there's got to be some botany aficionados somewhere who could fund moving vegetation and replacements.

Yes, we should clear all of it, the quicker the better.

The future of our civilization and humanity itself may depend on what we find...