In 1925, while exploring the remote jungles of the Amazon on a quest to uncover a fabled lost city, British explorer Percy Fawcett and his small expedition party vanished without a trace.

Fawcett, a noted geographer, artillery officer, cartographer, surveyor, and archaeologist, set off into the rainforest accompanied only by his son, Jack Fawcett, and Jack’s best friend, Raleigh Rimell. Their goal was to locate an ancient lost city rumored to exist in the heart of the Amazon that Fawcett and others called “The Lost City of Z.”

While Fawcett and his expedition crew’s fate remains unknown, new advancements in modern archaeological science, propelled by technologies that include unmanned aerial vehicles and LiDAR, are now revealing what could be the archaeological reality behind part of what the ill-fated British explorer sought.

“The reward is that we’re finally finding the ‘lost civilisation’ that explorers like Percy Fawcett were searching for a century ago,” says José Iriarte, a professor of archaeology at the University of Exeter, writing in a piece featured at The Conversation, though adding that such discoveries are now being made “by cajoling a drone rather than battering through jungle.”

LiDAR: Unearthing Lost Worlds Hidden from Time

For a time, archaeologists presumed that the Amazon rainforest was a vast wilderness that, while abundant in resources, would have been capable of supporting only small, scattered communities.

With the aid of modern technologies, those past ideas have gradually changed as new archaeological evidence continues to push researchers toward rethinking past assumptions. Among these technologies is advanced laser-mapping technology known as LiDAR (light detection and ranging), which archaeologists have put to great use in the last several decades to aid in uncovering evidence of surface features that were once either inaccessible or otherwise invisible during ground-based surveys.

Something else that LiDAR excels at is penetrating the dense forest of areas like the Amazon, enabling researchers to get unprecedented aerial views of the surface below the canopy, along with any structures that may have been left there by humans from long ago. The result has been evidence of sprawling ancient societies hidden beneath the cover of thick jungle, revealing the Amazon as a region that once supported large populations that existed in sophisticated, interconnected landscapes.

Rediscovering a ‘Lost Civilization’ in the Amazon

A particularly striking example of such discoveries involves the Llanos de Moxos region of northern Bolivia, where recent LiDAR surveys have revealed the presence of a sprawling archaeological site long hidden by dense jungle. Archaeologists believe the ancient settlement is linked to what is called the Casarabe culture, which would have thrived in the area sometime between A.D. 500 and 1400.

“The Casarabe organized into a hierarchy of four different sizes of settlements,” writes Professor Iriarte in his recent piece at The Conversation. “The biggest ones—the primary settlements—were as large as 3km² or 300 hectares.”

“That’s enough space for over 400 football pitches,” Iriarte notes, “suggesting that they could have accommodated substantial numbers of people.”

Unseen Evidence of an Ancient Amazonian Culture

Viewed from the ground, an observer who braved this dense region of Bolivian jungle might only see thick patches of forest separated by grassland savannahs.

That all changes when viewing LiDAR imagery obtained during aerial surveys, however. Through the sensitive detection capabilities afforded by laser pulses that can easily penetrate the dense vegetation, a lost world emerges—one the likes of which Percy Fawcett and other early explorers once only dreamed of rediscovering.

Researchers have now successfully identified a vast network of settlements at Llanos de Moxos, connected by raised causeways, canals, reservoirs, and engineered agricultural systems that cover an area of close to 20,000 square kilometers.

These complexes upend past thinking about the presence of isolated settlements in the region, and instead appear to show sites covering areas as large as three square kilometers, featuring monumental civic and ceremonial architecture, towering conical pyramids that ascend to heights of 20 meters, and the presence of massive U-shaped structures, which archaeologists believe had likely served as ceremonial structures that once hosted gatherings.

Unprecedented Scale of a Hidden World

Another surprising feature is the scale of the structures archaeologists have uncovered, which they say rivals some of the most well-known monuments like those of the ancient Tiwanaku civilization in the Andes.

Yet, unlike many densely packed ancient cities, the Casarabe landscape also differs in several ways: the unique variety of urbanism it reflects is suggestive of dispersed populations whose connected infrastructure also brought them together through ancient shared water management systems.

“It was clearly all planned and coordinated,” Iriarte explains, adding that the ancient builders at Llanos de Moxos engaged in precocious designs that were intended “not only as living spaces but for integrating the population across the region.” Similar architectural planning has been observed at other ancient sites around the world, which include those assembled by the ancient Maya of Central America, as well as the builders of Angkor across the world in Cambodia.

The “Dark Earth” Enigma

Beyond just architecture and clues to the way of life of these ancient societies, researchers are also gaining new insights into the agricultural practices of the early Amazonian world.

For many decades, scientists presumed that a major limiting factor on the region’s ability to sustain larger populations hinged on the presence of factors that included poor soils, seasonal flooding, droughts, and tropical diseases. However, mounting evidence suggests that the indigenous societies of the region were far from hindered by the landscape, and instead managed to transform and manage farmland at scales previously unimagined.

Along with sophisticated agricultural systems, ancient Amazonians were also capable of engineering remarkably fertile soils, known as Amazonian Dark Earths, which Iriarte says “combined charcoal, bone and waste materials with the existing poor-quality soil to make it fertile enough for widespread farming.”

“Amazonia had reclaimed vast expanses of seasonally flooded savannahs over several thousand years to create raised and drained field systems,” he adds, also noting the construction of extensive drainage networks and the cultivation of diverse crops such as maize. Rather than merely adapting to the rainforest, the ancient inhabitants of the Amazon actively reshaped it.

An Amazonian Archaeological Revolution

Thanks to similar LiDAR surveys that have recently been undertaken in nearby countries, including Ecuador’s Upano Valley, where thousands of structures linked by roads and organized according to highly structured settlement plans have been detected, the recent findings at Llanos de Moxos are one of the latest additions to a broader revolution in archaeology made possible through such exciting Amazonian discoveries.

In addition to Bolivia and Ecuador, researchers have also documented ceremonial earthworks, geometric enclosures, and sprawling ancient settlements in Colombia, Peru, and Brazil in recent years, all of which are challenging decades of past assumptions about ancient life in the Amazon.

Despite the recent advancements in our understanding, many questions remain unanswered. Among the questions archaeologists have are those related to how these ancient societies were governed, as well as what factors led to their decline, a fall which was precipitated by unknown factors that occurred before European arrival.

Possible contributing factors may include shifts in ancient climates, as well as environmental pressures. It is also possible that political changes or conflicts that emerged between neighboring societies may have played a role, which could have contributed to disruptions in trade networks that may have further weakened these once thriving societies.

Despite the remaining mysteries about these enigmatic cultures, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the Amazon was far from being the unclaimed tropical wilderness many long believed it to be. In many ways, the fascination with lost cities and ancient civilizations that drove explorers like Percy Fawcett—and which led to his untimely fate—had more basis in reality than many historians, archaeologists, and explorers probably guessed.

As ongoing LiDAR surveys continue to expand across previously unexplored regions, archaeologists believe thousands more structures may still await discovery, suggesting that some of the Amazon’s greatest archaeological secrets remain hidden, but no longer kept entirely from view.

“What lies beneath the Amazon is not just a hidden past,” Iriarte says. “It is a reminder that even the most seemingly untouched landscapes can carry deep histories, waiting—sometimes just beneath our feet—to be revealed.”

Professor José Iriarte’s complete article appeared at The Conversation on June 8, 2026.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

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The foundation of global space law that has governed human activity outside Earth for nearly six decades may be approaching a breaking point, according to a new analysis by two astronomers who argue that the legal framework created during the Cold War is inadequate for an era of commercial spaceflight, global political instability, and growing militarization of orbit.

The study, published in Frontiers in Space Technologies, argues that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), long regarded as the foundation of peaceful space exploration, confronts mounting challenges from transforming global power shifts, increasing orbital competition, and the emergence of private companies as dominant players in space activities.

Dr. John Barentine of the Center for Space Environmentalism and Dark Sky Consulting, along with Dr. Aparna Venkatesan, a physicist and astronomer at the University of San Francisco, contend that while the treaty remains valuable, it may not be able to address the realities of the modern space age.

Rather than emphasizing legal reforms alone, the paper raises a wider question about humanity’s relationship with space itself. Researchers suggest that future governance of outer space may require a fundamental shift away from viewing space as a resource to be exploited and toward treating it as an environment that deserves stewardship and protection in its own right.

Although neither author specializes in international relations or military affairs, they argue that astronomers are uniquely positioned to witness how changes in space policy increasingly affect scientific research and humanity’s future in orbit.

“We are living through a time in which Earth and near-Earth space are facing unprecedented levels of potentially irreversible change,” researchers write. “The modern history of our discipline is inseparable from the technological developments brought on by those who sought to make a warfighting domain of outer space.”

A Space Treaty Born From the Cold War

The Outer Space Treaty emerged during one of the most tense periods of the Cold War. Negotiated primarily by the United States and the Soviet Union, the agreement established several basic principles that still govern space activities today.

Among them are prohibitions on national sovereignty claims over celestial bodies, restrictions on the placement of weapons of mass destruction in space, and commitments to use outer space for peaceful purposes.

For decades, the treaty has been credited with helping prevent an outright orbital arms race. Yet, Dr. Barentine and Dr. Venkatesan argue that the document was written for a vastly different world. One in which only a handful of nations possessed launch capabilities and private space companies were virtually nonexistent.

Today, dozens of countries operate satellites, commercial firms launch rockets at unprecedented rates, and ambitious plans for lunar bases, asteroid mining, and cislunar infrastructure are rapidly moving from science fiction to reality.

Researchers argue that the treaty’s framers could not have anticipated many of these developments, leaving major legal and moral questions unresolved. They note that the treaty lacks robust enforcement mechanisms and provides no definitive mechanism for resolving disputes between member states.

Space Has Always Been a Military Domain

A central theme of the paper is that warfare and space exploration have been intertwined from the beginning.

The authors trace the history of military activity in space back to the V-2 rockets of World War II and the launch of Sputnik in 1957, which demonstrated Soviet intercontinental missile capabilities as much as scientific achievement.

They also recount historical examples such as Soviet space weapons experiments, anti-satellite weapon testing by multiple nations, and the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, often remembered by its popular nickname, “Star Wars.”

In recent years, nations including the United States, China, India, and Russia have invested heavily in military space capabilities. Meanwhile, proposals such as advanced missile-defense architectures and growing concerns about anti-satellite weapons have renewed fears that space could become an increasingly contested military environment.

The researchers warn that global disputes on Earth are increasingly likely to spill into orbit, where the consequences could be especially severe. In contrast to terrestrial battlefields, debris generated by destructive actions in space can persist for years or even decades, threatening spacecraft belonging to many nations.

The Commercial Space Revolution Creates New Questions

The study additionally highlights the rapid rise of private space companies as a challenge that the Space Treaty never fully anticipated.

Under Article VI of the Space Treaty, governments are responsible for overseeing activities conducted by non-governmental entities within their jurisdictions. However, the researchers argue that the explosive growth of commercial spaceflight is creating uncertainty concerning regulatory oversight and responsibility.

This issue is especially important for the United States, which currently accounts for more than half of all low-Earth-orbit launches and operates the majority of active satellites.

As commercial firms assume larger roles in launch services, communications infrastructure, and moon missions, questions about who bears responsibility for environmental impacts and operational decisions become increasingly important.

The researchers suggest that future governance systems must address not only nation-state behavior but also the increasing influence of private actors whose interests may not always coincide with long-term environmental management.

A Forthcoming Lunar Land Rush?

One of the study’s most important observations concerns the Moon.

Dr. Barentine and Dr. Venkatesan describe moon missions as an early glimpse of future space geopolitics. Five nations have already successfully landed spacecraft on the Moon, and plans for permanent infrastructure continue to accelerate.

Because the Space Treaty prevents claims of sovereignty but does not completely resolve questions about resource use and operational exclusion zones, the researchers warn that countries arriving first could effectively secure the most valuable locations for science, resource extraction, or future settlements.

That dynamic, they argue, risks creating new forms of competition despite the treaty’s intent to promote cooperation.

The same concerns extend to orbital congestion and space debris. Researchers note that nations with little or no involvement in space activities may nevertheless bear the consequences of falling rocket stages and orbital debris generated by major space powers.

Rethinking Humanity’s Relationship With Space

Rather than advocating abandoning the Outer Space Treaty, the researchers ultimately argue that it remains the best framework currently available. However, they contend that future agreements must move past traditional geopolitical thinking.

The paper proposes drawing inspiration from the growing global “Rights of Nature” movement, which argues that ecosystems possess intrinsic value and deserve legal protections independent of human economic interests. Applied to space, such an approach would emphasize environmental health, reciprocity, and long-term stewardship over competition and exploitation.

Dr. Barentine and Dr. Venkatesan point to examples such as the peaceful management of Antarctica, international cooperation aboard the International Space Station, and partnerships among scientific institutions and Indigenous communities as models that could help shape future space governance.

Ultimately, they argue that the greatest threat to the space environment may not be legal loopholes nor technological restrictions, but humanity’s own willingness to abandon cooperation when competition becomes tempting.

“As our title reveals, the fundamental challenge lies in defending the space environment from failure of human goodwill and trust, rather than defending the space environment from the blind spots of current treaties,” researchers write. “The story of humanity in space is still being written, requiring innovation and determination from institutions and communities alike.”

Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan.  Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com 

An analysis of dental tartar containing traces of human diets dating back over 33,000 years has revealed that ancient Europeans and many early Asian populations likely only ate insects by accident, perhaps as larvae in the carcasses of dead animals.

Conversely, the new study found that intentional insect consumption, called entomophagy, was more common in tropical regions and among Neanderthal populations.

Although the difference has some cultural and religious roots, the team found evidence that the abundance of insects in the tropics and the decreasing ability of humans migrating away from the tropics to digest insects likely led to the modern-day separation over thousands of years.

The Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), research team behind the new findings suggests their research could help explain why some modern populations still consume insects as food while other parts of the world consider it gross or taboo, especially given the increasing food demands of a rising world population.

Insect Consumption in Ancient Northern Europeans Likely Accidental

According to a statement announcing the new research, hundreds of millions of people currently include insects in their diet. However, they also note that most of the Western world continues to “show an aversion” to including any of the more than 1,611 insect species designated as edible by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in theirs. Although some theories suggest the difference is almost purely cultural, the team concedes that “its origin remains unknown.”

To explore the origins of human entomophagy, the IBE analyzed 745 samples of ancient human dental tartar dating back to 33,000 before present. According to the team’s results published in the journal Science Advances, dental tartar (sometimes called dental ‘calculus’) is a critical archaeological tool because it preserves the DNA of the species these human ancestors consumed during their lifetimes.

Although the analysis found evidence for entomophagy amongst virtually all ancient populations sampled in the study, the levels varied dramatically. Notably, the evidence suggested that ancient humans in northern Eurasia did not routinely eat insects in measurable quantities. Instead, any consumption was likely incidental, including consumption of insect larvae in rotting food.

Curious whether the lack of entomophagy in ancient European and Central and Northern Asian populations was purely cultural or whether genetic and geographic factors were involved, the team studied human genes involved in chitin digestion. Chitin, which can be found in some marine animal shells, is also part of an insect’s hard exoskeleton.

According to the study authors, the analysis revealed that the ‘chitinase’ genes in North Eurasian human populations “carry mutations that confer a reduced capacity to digest insect exoskeletons.” Their analysis revealed that this reduced capacity to digest insect exoskeletons has persisted in the genomes of modern Eurasian populations “for the last 9,000 years,” which would coincide with the widely accepted date for the origin of agriculture.

Pablo Librado, study leader and a principal investigator at the IBE, said the “scarce presence of insects in the diet of northern Eurasians” suggests that the cause may not lie solely in more recent cultural factors but also in ecological and evolutionary components dating back several millennia. 

Neanderthals and Denisovans Probably Ate Insect Larvae in Rotting Meat

When the team compared data from ancient human tartar with that of ancient Neanderthals, they found that Neanderthals engaged in much higher levels of entomophagy than humans living in the same regions. According to the study authors, Neanderthal insect consumption levels were similar to those found in western chimpanzee populations, which the researchers note “rely on entomophagy to supplement their diet on the savanna, especially during periods of drought.”

Further analysis of the extracted insect DNA showed that the group most commonly consumed by the Neanderthal specimens included flies and mosquitoes. Although the team only analyzed the DNA, they noted that a recent hypothesis suggests Neanderthals ate carcasses laden with mosquito larvae.

“The abundance of mosquito remains reinforces the possibility that the carcasses of their prey were kept in ponds and marshy areas, where mosquitoes lay their eggs,” the team’s statement explained.

An analysis of the Neanderthal DNA and the DNA from the lone Denisovan study subject revealed that both ancient hominid populations could digest chitin. This result reinforced the genetic basis for increased or reduced entomophagy beyond cultural factors. 

Humans Ate Fewer Bugs When They Moved Away from Tropical Regions

One geographic component identified by the chitinase DNA analysis showed higher levels of digestive enzyme expression among humans living in or near the tropics. However, the expression of these enzymes gradually decreased as populations moved away from tropical regions. The team said this variation, which has been maintained for at least the last 9,000 years, “reflects the abandonment of entomophagy in European populations.”

Manuel Piñero, a predoctoral researcher at the IBE and first author of the study, noted that large numbers of insects must be consumed to offset the “high caloric cost” of collecting them, which might explain the higher levels of entomophagy in this region.

“In the tropics, there is a greater availability of social insects, such as termites and locusts,”  Piñero  explained, adding that the biomass and diversity of tropical edible insects enable “sustainable exploitation throughout the year.” The researcher also noted that insect consumption “adds to pest control.”

When discussing the implications of their findings, Librado highlighted the DNA and geographic factors the IBE team uncovered.

“Beyond cultural or religious factors, our results suggest that the reduced availability of insects in non-tropical areas may have been a key factor in the abandonment of entomophagy, leading to a reduced capacity to digest insect exoskeletons,” the researcher explained.

Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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