A lost Amazon world just reappeared in Bolivia

Summary

People collecting water from Lake Rogaguado. Credit: C. JaimesProf Carla Jaimes Betancourt, an anthropologist focusing on the Amazon, is a researcher at the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn and co-director of the BASA Museum housed at the university. Her research, promoting collaborative archaeology with local Indigenous People, focuses on the social complexity in the southwestern Amazon and processes of expansion and formation of ethnic groups in the South American lowland.In a newly published Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology article, she and co-authors present the results of interdisciplinary and collaborative archaeological research conducted in the southwestern Amazon. In the following editorial, she highlights the rich cultural heritage found at the sites and the importance of protecting these landscapes where humans have thrived for thousands of years. by Prof Carla Jaimes BetancourtIn September 2021, a multidisciplinary expedition explored one of the least-known regions of the Bolivian Amazon: the Great Tectonic Lakes of Exaltación in the department of Beni. Organized by the Grupo de Trabajo para los Llanos de Moxos (GTLM), the mission brought together researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the National Museum of Natural History, the Institute of Ecology, the Biodiversity and Environment Research Center, the Aquatic Resources Research Center, and the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn.Landscapes as Living ArchivesIn southwestern Amazonia, the great tectonic Lakes Rogaguado and Ginebra in Bolivia reveal a profoundly human landscape, a living archive of adaptation and creativity. Beneath the grasslands and shallow waters lie monumental earthworks, raised fields, and complex canal systems that attest to millennia of human–environment interaction. The lakes lie within the Municipal Protected Area of Grandes Lagos Tectónicos de Exaltación and form part of the Río Yata Ramsar w...