More of ancient Amazon civilization unearthed

A Japanese scholar leading a multiyear archaeological project in Bolivia says his team has found a small human skeleton well over 1,000 years old in this year's excavation, the first discovery of its kind in that country.

Old bones: A skeleton is unearthed in a dig site this year by a Japan-Bolivia joint archaeological investigation of an ancient settlement in Bolivia. KYODO PHOTO

"The well-preserved skeleton was very small in size, about 70 cm tall, with a disproportionately large head, but it had characteristics of an adult," Katsuyoshi Sanematsu, a professor of anthropology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, said in a recent interview.

The dating analysis of a carbon sample extracted from a neck bone showed that the skeleton dates back to around 700 A.D.

Sanematsu said this year's project was carried out for about a month from the beginning of August at an ancient settlement located on a massive man-made hill, or "loma," in Bolivia's lush northeastern Beni Province.

This is the third year of the Japan-Bolivia joint archaeological investigation Project Mojos conducted at Loma Chocolatalito, an ancient settlement about 35 km east of the provincial capital of Trinidad.

Besides Sanematsu, an author of numerous books on ancient Central and South American cultures, the team this year consisted of another Japanese anthropologist, a Japanese ecologist, three Bolivian archaeologists, a Peruvian-Russian anthropologist and a Bolivian topographer.

Also found at the loma were ceramic dolls, coins, pieces of pottery with a design of a three-stepped platform, ceramic spinning wheels and other tools, Sanematsu said.

"The three-stepped platform design, or three 'pachas,' has its origin in the Andean civilization and indicates there was an interchange of cultures between the Andean highland and the Amazon," he said.

There were also numerous pieces of pottery, animal bones and apple snails at the site, Sanematsu said.

"The large quantity of pieces of pottery found, together with numerous animal bones and apple snails, indicate there used to exist at the site an ancient society with a considerable population," he said.

"There was a great variety of animal bones found, including fish bones, and this tells us something about their food culture, what exact animals they lived on," he added.

At the same time, the team made a survey of the area around the loma to develop a detailed map. There are canals, waterways, reservoirs and "terraplens" (ancient roads or dikes) around the loma that form a complex water system built by the ancients, Sanematsu said.

Over the past three years, the team has brought back to Japan numerous carbon samples for carbon dating analysis. The results show that the upper part of Loma Chocolatalito was inhabited approximately from 100 to 1200 A.D.

Although when exactly the first phase of this settlement began is still unclear, the results of the dating analysis indicate that Loma Chocolatalito has an older origin than previously thought and was first constructed at least 2,000 years ago. It appears the settlement was abandoned around 1200.

Although there are some theories about this disappearance, it still remains a mystery.