Published in Science, this study led by Stéphen Rostain (CNRS) unveils the earliest and largest urban network ever documented in the Amazon. Using Lidar technology in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, researchers discovered a dense agrarian civilization lasting over 1,000 years, featuring more than 6,000 earthen platforms, plazas, and an intricate system of straight roads connecting 15 distinct settlements. Described as “garden urbanism,” this complex infrastructure rivals Mayan systems and definitively disproves the notion that the pre-Columbian Amazon was sparsely populated by small nomadic tribes.