LiDAR reveals a 2,500-year-old urban network in Ecuador's Upano Valley

July 09, 2026EcuadorRemote SensingShare

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Key facts

• Airborne LiDAR mapped the ground beneath the rainforest in Ecuador's Upper Upano Valley, in the eastern foothills of the Andes.
• The survey identified more than 6,000 platform mounds associated with domestic, public and ceremonial structures.
• Researchers identified 15 settlements—five large urban centres and ten smaller ones—linked by a road network.
• Some roads were cut roughly 10–13 feet (3–4 metres) into the ground; one extended at least 15 miles (24 kilometres), in places cutting through ravines and high ground.
• The results were published in Science in 2024.
• Lead author Stéphane Rostain, an archaeologist at France's CNRS, had worked in the valley for nearly 30 years. Co-author José Iriarte is a professor at the University of Toulouse.
• The main settlement system dates to roughly 500 BCE–300 CE; the authors describe it as more than a millennium older than previously known Amazonian complex societies.
• Rostain calls the settlement pattern “garden urbanism” and says it changes understanding of Amazonian prehistory. He estimates that more than 90% of Amazonian archaeological sites remain undiscovered.
• Commentators have linked Upano to Percy Fawcett's “Lost City of Z,” but the research establishes no such connection and does not validate his search.

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