The seven giant funeral urs from the pre-Columbus era are found deep in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil. Along the upper course of the Amazon River, a fisherman working in this little-known flooded area in the central Solimès area made his discovery after a 50-foot (15 meters) high Pariscarana tree fell and revealed urine buried beneath it.
The age of bone NS is currently unknown. Pre-Colombians they are either centuries or thousands of years old. However, archaeologists at the Mamilaua Institute for Sustainable Development (IDSM) in Brazil said that their burial site – the human island – is extraordinary, but it is unclear whether the culture that created the island also created the ur.
Two large ceramic urs, up to 35 inches (89 cm) in diameter, contained human bones, while the other two held seeds and fish, frogs and turtle debris, said Geórgea Layla Holanda of Archaeogist, a core of IDSM. These seeds and animal relics were probably part of the funeral ritual.
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The discovery is “unprecedented,” she said in a translated statement from Brazil’s Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation. The large bones do not have a ceramic lid. “Perhaps because it was sealed with decomposed organic material,” Hollanda told Live Science.
However, the discoveries of slightly similar ceramics have been made elsewhere in the central Solimès region. In these cases, bone n “has a lid that represents the head, and the structure of the sides mimics the limbs,” she said.
“Green clay pottery is rare, but we’ve seen it elsewhere in the area,” Hollanda said. “I also found fragments with an externally applied layer of clay and painted a red stripe, but it is still impossible to link these to known ceramic styles.”
Related: Why is there no bridge on the Amazon River?
Archaeologists already know that funerals, including ur, generally involve multiple stages, she added.
“After death, the body was left in the river basket, just as the fish consumed soft tissue or buried in the ground,” Hollanda said. “Then it split [jumbled] The bones were cremated and placed within the funeral ur, representing a new body, new skin. Finally, many Amazon cultures buried these pots under the house. ”
Archaeology on Amazon Rainforest
The month of fieldwork was planned in collaboration with residents of a community nearby San Lazarodo Armanda Biña.
“This was a community-driven demand and we understood the historical importance of these objects,” Márcio Amaral, an IDSM archaeologist who co-led the excavation, told Live Science. The community in San Lazaro de Armandobinja advised excavators to avoid seasonal river flooding, as the archaeological site, called Lago de Kochira (or Lake Kochira) is located in an inundation zone where there is no access to solid ground.
To reach this remote part of the Amazon in Brazil, the research team traveled over 24 hours by boat along the winding Amazon River from the Tefe Institute’s base along the community, canoeing 11 miles (18 kilometers) from the flooded area, then walking through the forest for an hour along the trail, and the guide was hacked along with the machetes.
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Due to the difficult conditions in which bone ns lie, excavations were carried out on a platform 10 feet (3 m) up from the ground, and timber and grape grapes were built by community members.
The funeral ur was buried about 15 inches (40 cm) deep on an artificial island built by the ancestral indigenous people. These people used the earth to make this island, as well as others in the island and the area, primarily to protect their communities from flooding the river, Amaral said.
As the excavation has been carried out, the researchers will be on a date with ur. They also have additional local reports of ur at other archaeological sites in the area, including nearby artificial islands.
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