Lost Cities of the Amazon

For decades, the Amazon was seen as an untouched wilderness where large civilizations could never have survived. But in the 1990s, French archaeologist Stéphen Rostain began challenging that idea. Working in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, he spent years digging by hand through the dense 'green wall' of trees. He found individual earthen mounds, pottery, and ancient hearths—clear proof that people had lived there long before Europeans arrived. Yet his discoveries were met with skepticism. Rostain could prove a few people had lived there, but without a view from above, he couldn’t see the true scale of what was hidden. He was standing on the edge of a lost world, but the jungle kept its biggest secret.