The Legend of El Dorado and Genius Modern Engineering
The Legend of El Dorado
The arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century interacting with the Muisca people of what is now Columbia, gave rise to the legend of El Dorado, a city made of gold somewhere in the Amazon basin. The first successful expedition to navigate the entirety of the longest river in the world came in 1541. Gonzalo Pizarro along with 220 Conquistadores and 4000 natives set out from what is now Quito Ecuador to find the lost city. By the time the expedition had reached the eastern foothills of the Andes Mountains, 3000 natives, and 140 Spanish had died or deserted. Without food or direction, Pizarro sent his lieutenant, Francisco de Orellana, and 50 men ahead to scout the route out of the mountains. He and his men fashioned a boat and set out on the tributary of the Amazon River. Soon they realized that the strong current down the slope of the basin would prohibit them from returning westward; thus began a year-long journey from the foothills of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean.
At first, the native tribes they encountered were friendly and generous. Gaspar de Carvajal, who chronicled the expedition wrote about massive urban settlements that stretched down the riverbank uninterrupted for as much as thirty miles at a time. As the expedition stretched into a year and they came nearer to the wide expanse of the main river, the encounters with natives became increasingly hostile. In an altercation with the Tapuyas, Orellana noted that the woman fought alongside the men. He described the river as the ‘River of the Amazons’ after the Greek legend of the women warriors of Asia.
Orellana eventually reached the Atlantic with a small contingent of men and followed the coastline northward until they arrived at the Spanish outpost of Cubagua, nearly a year after departing from the Andes. Upon returning to Spain later that year, Orellana first landed in Portugal. After telling the story of his improbable journey to the king he was offered backing for a second expedition and a governorship of New Andalucia if he claimed the Amazon basin for Portugal.
The accounts of large vibrant settlements were discounted over time. Subsequent expeditions saw no evidence of settlements or agriculture or gold. Orellana was historically considered a fraud, but this may have been a story of not seeing the forest for the trees. The vast populations of an advanced culture were wiped out in a generation by the disease that the Europeans introduced to native people without immunity. That is the same story of the near genocide of all Native American people from Alaska to Patagonia. The settlements were still there but reclaimed by the jungle. It wasn’t until technology, invented in the final decade of the 20th century and implemented in this one, revolutionized the scientific world and ushered in a ‘Golden Age’ of archaeology.
Lidar Technology
Drones and helicopters, fitted with Lidar transmitters that send millions of sound impulses to bounce off the jungle floor have allowed archeologists to map the jungle floor as it is underneath the jungle, to see through the thick canopy literally . The result has been a major expansion of understanding the scope of the Mayan culture of Southern Mexico and Central America, the Incan culture of the Andes, and the Muisca people of Columbia.
The most astonishing discoveries came with Lidar mapping of the Amazon basin, revealing that the region was once home to as many as 5 million people. Thousands of kilometers of interconnected canals and elevated causeways formed a sprawling urban culture covering an area twice the size of Great Britain.
Genius Engineering
Further exploration revealed the remnants of a culture with a network of roads and canals as advanced as those of the Egyptian Empire. Lacking natural stone, they built an intricate, ground-level interconnected community that left a very light footprint on their environment. During the dry season, they dredged canals to transport people and goods. The material excavated from these canals was used to construct elevated causeways, which were reported by the Spanish as wide as six horses. This allowed them to move freely during the dry season with adequate irrigation, and during the rainy season, they remained high and dry on elevated roads, plazas, and platforms for their homes. This still doesn’t explain how they ate.
How Could They Feed Themselves?
Further soil testing revealed the most amazing surprise of all. Next to the poorest compacted soil anywhere on earth, scientists discovered plots as much as three meters deep of the richest most productive soil in the world. Excavation of these plots revealed that they were man-made and growing. Terra Preta or dark earth is the combination of carbon, compost, minerals, and microbiology.
This ancient secret offers a solution to a number of the major problems facing human existence on Earth.
Biochar sequesters carbon in the ground where it belongs and not in the atmosphere where it adds to global warming.
Biochar vastly improves soil productivity ensuring the ever-growing world population will be able to live free of the threat of starvation.
More productive growing means more oxygen in the atmosphere and less carbon dioxide.
Biochar reverses desertification. Soil scientist David Montgomery has calculated that the world loses 24 billion tons of topsoil annually. Every minute, desert conditions swallow the equivalent of 17 football fields of arable land. This is the number one cause of the greatest human displacement in history. It is the principal cause of the worldwide immigration crisis.
Simply put, biochar has the ability to raise the humus content of the soil by 10% in the next twenty years meeting the goal of the Paris Climate Accord and returning the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels in thirty years.
If we do nothing to mitigate the effects of escalating temperatures and drought the world has 60 more harvests. 60 more years of exploiting the world before it becomes too hostile for human life.
The choice seems clear. The superpowers of the world must sign on to the Paris Climate Accord. If corporations and governments were not tripping over themselves to send rockets to mars and apply those resources to this planet we could win the battle. Reverse global warming, stop the ravage of climate change and feed the world.