Finding Lost Civilizations – How Lidar Uncovered Ancient Cities in the Amazon

Using NASA collected lidar data, specialized data processing, and cloud-based visualization technologies, researchers from Terra Incognita have identified evidence of previously unknown ancient civilizations hidden deep beneath the Amazon jungle. These discoveries include extensive geoglyphs—large, human-made geometric formations etched into the landscape—detectable only through lidar. This panel will retrace Terra’s discovery and their subsequent expedition into the Amazon jungle to ground truth the NASA data, document the evidence, and collect control points. To reveal and share this data with the public, the team has partnered with Stitch3D to showcase an interactive, cloud-based platform that allows participants to explore these findings in real time. The session will conclude with a look ahead to future missions aimed at extending lidar coverage into uncharted areas of the Amazon, advancing our understanding of ancient human settlement in one of the planet’s most remote and least explored regions.