#446 – Ed Barnhart: Maya, Aztec, Inca, and Lost Civilizations of South America
Episode publishedPodcast: Lex Fridman PodcastLex Fridman Podcast
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The following is a conversation with Ed Barnhart, an archaeologist specializing in ancient civilizations of South America, Mesoamerica, and North America.
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Yes. I do. And in fact, you know, we we have found some civilizations that we had no idea about just in my lifetime. I mean, we've got Gobekli Tepe, and we've got the stuff that's going on in the Amazon. And there are some other less startling things that we had no idea existed and push our dates back and give us whole new civilizations we had no idea about. So, yeah, it's happened, and I think it'll happen again.
Do you think there's a lost civilization in the Amazon that, the Amazon jungle has eaten up or is hiding the evidence of?
Yes. I do. And I, we're we're beginning to find it. There are these huge, what we call geoglyphs, these mound groups that are in geometric patterns. I think that the average Joe, when they hear the word civilization, they think of something that looks like Rome. And I don't think we're ever going to find anything that looks like Rome in the Amazon. I think a lot of things there I mean, wherever you are on the planet, you use your natural resources. And in the Amazon, there's not a whole lot of stone. What stone is there is deep, deep, deep. So a lot of their things were built out of dirt and t
But is it possible that all that land that is not covered by trees is actually hiding
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