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What’s The Deal With Percy Fawcett and The Lost City of Z? - Ep 150
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Percy Fawcett was an explorer who is famous for attempting to find a lost city that doesn’t exist, and ultimately cutting short his own existence in the process. Still, he’s a super interesting dude full of adventure, daring, and traits both good and bad, all of which leads to an unfortunate end of the road in 1925.
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For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/150
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
Episode 150 and Topic Introduction
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 150. Can you believe we made it? I am your host,
Who was Percy Fawcett?
00:00:31
Speaker
Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and tonight, Percy Fawcett and the lost city of Z. Where's my city? And why have we called it Z?
00:00:49
Speaker
All right. Welcome back, y'all. And I thought I'd take on a topic today that I kind of it's so funny. It's kind of close to my heart. I know a decent amount about it. I'm afraid as I do this one, because, you know, sometimes you're almost too close in. And I feel like right after I record this, I'm going to be like, oh, damn
The Blend of Myth and Reality in Fawcett's Story
00:01:09
Speaker
it.
00:01:09
Speaker
You know, and be like, Oh, I forgot. Wait, I forgot to talk about that. Oh, and I forgot to talk about that. I don't know. Maybe I'll do Percy positive part two in a while. But I love this story because.
00:01:22
Speaker
It fits into the pseudo archaeology world. Parts of it are very pseudo archaeological, but other parts are actually true and reasonable, right? So it's this really great mishmash of weird stuff and honest stuff and stuff worth pursuing and stuff that's a total waste of time. And it's just it's fun to kind of sail those waters through this.
00:01:50
Speaker
Now, why have I picked, you know, talking about Percy Fawcett, what I would care about Percy Fawcett, man. So Percy Fawcett was born in 1867 and he's going to ultimately die in 1925, right?
00:02:04
Speaker
And he's kind of one of the last of the great British explorers. You know, he has he totally has that vibe. I dig this guy because his history is exploring South America, really the Amazon,
Personal Views on Fawcett
00:02:18
Speaker
right? So he's a jungle type guy. And of course, since I'm a jungle type guy,
00:02:25
Speaker
I have a special spot in my heart for jungle type guys you know and i love the guys story because i can feel it on my skin i understand a lot of the choices he made especially when he's in the jungle when he's doing certain things.
00:02:44
Speaker
You know, as I read his story, I'm like, yep, yep, I would have done that. Oh, I get that. And then there are certain things he did that are really terrible choices where I get like extra angry. You know, I'm like, oh, Percy, oh, damn it. Why did you? Oh, you know, so I have this real visceral.
00:03:00
Speaker
reaction to to the story.
Fawcett's Motivations and Early Exploration
00:03:02
Speaker
On top of this, too, one of my students is really into it, too. And we kind of bro out on Percy Voss. And sometimes as I'm doing this, I'm like, oh, my God, wait, if if he if he hears this and like I miss something, he's he's going to know I'm i'm a fraud.
00:03:16
Speaker
But hopefully, I'm kind of sort of not a fraud on this. So the whole Percy Fawcett thing, of course, starts with him being born in 1867, growing up in the 1870s, the 1880s, that old again, sort of Victorian, upper crust vibe.
00:03:40
Speaker
I believe his father, they're they're all in sort of high society, capital H, capital S, you know. I think his dad kind of ruined his position in society because he was an alcoholic. And part of Percy's chip on his shoulder was doing well in front of these people. You know, I don't think he ever got over that. I think he was really into sort of the show off aspect of some of this. And I think that that really deep kind of like, oh, I have to fix this thing because my dad did this. I don't think he really got over it. And I think that's something that ultimately killed him, honestly. So he becomes part of the military. You know, he wants to distinguish himself. It's always about distinguishing himself. You know, I need to get this metal doing this thing. But he kind of sort of
00:04:35
Speaker
doesn't and and i think he was honestly sort of very good at the whole military thing but it's just it's just not the right time there may be kind of in between wars you know other people know that he's his family has fallen from grace you know ultimately though He gets an offer from the Royal Geographical Society in, I believe, 1906. So how old does that make him? That's 1870.
Fawcett's Expedition Methods
00:05:00
Speaker
So he's already like 38 or so. And this is part of the crazy bit as we tell the Percy Fawcett story. His
00:05:10
Speaker
what he's known for, which is this jungle, swashbuckling, adventuring thing. He starts this in his late 30s. This isn't somebody who's in their late 30s in 2024. This is somebody who's in their late 30s over 100 years ago. So I always wonder if when the Royal Geographic Society offered this expedition to him, if they were like,
00:05:34
Speaker
Man, I can't believe this old fossil would actually take this on. I think he's going to die. you know But I will say that Percy Fossek kept himself, I think, in very, very good health. I believe he wasn't a smoker and all this. easy He was one of those like.
00:05:49
Speaker
overly conservative guys, you know, I think when it came to this stuff, but it served him well in terms of his overall health. So this guy in his late thirties, he goes out. The point of the expedition is basically to find and map the border between Bolivia and Brazil. So this is, of course, way deep in the jungle. Right. And he he takes off with a couple other people. He is famous for running very small groups of people.
00:06:19
Speaker
And that's one of the first things that I really had respect for him for doing. Cause I totally get that from the point of view of exploring in the jungle at the time in the early 1900s, the fashionable way to do these exploration events, you know, whether it be exploring the South pole or, you know, whatever.
00:06:44
Speaker
would be to take a big old bunch of people and a big old bunch of supplies and move this like juggernaut army along. And as both Percy faucet and I know, it's So hard to move a big group like that. It's so much easier to travel light. I'm a huge fan of traveling light in ah in a place like that. And Percy Fawcett had really good success in the most general sense by traveling light him and a handful of people, the types of supplies he took were always very smart. Like so, so often on these expeditions from this time period, you look at their supply list and you're like, Oh man, that's so stupid.
00:07:24
Speaker
Let you know they'll take stuff that is not right for the environment you know it'll be like this overbearing will take this like super heavy stuff and will take the wrong food that takes up the spoils you take the wrong clothing cuz i have no idea what they're up against.
00:07:39
Speaker
Percy Fawcett was very far ahead of his time in terms of taking appropriate stuff for a jungle adventure. Very good on that. I give the guy high marks for the setup and he was also really good at making a small group of people who can get along and who can hack it in the jungle. He was very careful about kind of casting or screening the people who he would go on these expeditions on, it right making sure they're tough and not just physically tough mentally. you know I know it sounds cliche, but it's true. like Can you hack it? Can you hack it being alone in the jungle for months? Can you hack the loneliness? Stuff like loneliness is much more difficult.
00:08:23
Speaker
to deal with then, oh, I have malaria, you know, now malaria sucks, but malaria is not as depressing as loneliness. So good on him. And I would say his first expedition is largely, I think, what you would call a success. He gets out, he maps the the border area. He has his difficulties, of course, just with the jungle, with the indigenous people he meets. That's another thing. He's a very good people person, I think, when it comes to that stuff. So meeting new people, he was very good at
00:09:01
Speaker
being friendly, you know, maintaining ties. And he had these meetings that were very contentious, contentious, meaning they're shooting arrows at you. You know, this is scary stuff. This is edgy stuff.
00:09:14
Speaker
where you're interacting with a tribal level indigenous group who is, you know, has likely never seen this type of outsider before. So he was, again, came across all this very anthropological, very open-minded, I would say, in in terms of the new people he met. And he was rewarded for that because he didn't come in in that, like, oh, if you don't do what I say, I'm going to pull out my guns, you know, kind
Respect for Indigenous Cultures and the Legend of Z
00:09:39
Speaker
of thing. He tried to make friends. So after that,
00:09:44
Speaker
his first nineteen oh six nineteen oh seven expedition percy totally caught the jungle exploration bug. And i totally get how that happens as i have a tail and.
00:10:00
Speaker
There's just something about it, you know, even though it's difficult, it's full of bugs, it's sweaty, it's itchy, you know, it's hot, it's uncomfortable. There's just something about the jungle that is amazing and over the top and you just really feel like you're doing something super exciting and worthwhile and I can feel his choices in that. When we come back, more explorations and more excitement from Percy Fawcett. And let's try and find Z while we're at it.
00:10:39
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast episode one hundred and fifty. And we are talking about Percy Posse and the Lost City of Z. And what I was saying was he had his first expedition learned a lot right. Nineteen oh six, nineteen oh seven. And he's just caught the bug and he's like, I want to do this. I want to go back and back and back. And he does. So between about nineteen, you know, whatever it is, oh, eight and and World War One, so 1914 or so in that time,
00:11:08
Speaker
He goes back a bunch of other times in total from the beginning to the, from his first expedition to his last, I believe he goes seven times. This is something like that. I forget. Is it eight? Is it seven? I forget, but it's a lot.
00:11:21
Speaker
And so he's, he's just, he's doing this, doing this, doing this as the years go by, he's learning a couple of things about the jungle. First, he's learning to really respect the people who live there. And he's learning that their way of life, although it's obviously not as complex as a complex society, there still is complexity to it and a depth to it and a knowledge to it. And Percy's really into this stuff. He's just, he's into.
00:11:51
Speaker
sort of observing and learning from the the native tribes. And he does. So he has a real respect for that. way Again, very forward thinking for the time, this you know early Victorian, over a hundred years ago, time period, when people just thought, oh, there's savages in the jungle. Ugh, you know, there just, there's remnants of of a much better group in the past. and Percy's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. He really fought against that. In addition to that, though, he also starts getting this idea that maybe there's some lost city deep in the jungle because he's putting these bits and bobs together in his own brain. You have to realize this is a brain of somebody who's living at that point like 120 years ago. And he's like,
00:12:33
Speaker
Okay, these people I meet in the jungle, yeah, they don't live in cities and stuff, but they kind of are more knowledgeable and full of depth than I thought they would be. I hear these bits and bobs about some sort of lost city thing. He kind of got into what some of the Spanish explorers from the 1500s would write, the whole idea of El Dorado and you know that kind of stuff. He's finding things in the jungle. I believe he finds you know bits of pottery and this kind of stuff.
00:13:03
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, I think there's a law city yeah way back, way back there somewhere. And he just kind of labels it Z, the law city of Z. It's funny on a side note, working in the Maya area, there was a certain site that we knew was around. We couldn't find it. We called it site Q. I guess it's because Z was already taken. So we used Q.
00:13:24
Speaker
And that was actually a real thing that my archaeologists have since figured out what psych Q actually was. But we couldn't figure it out because it was talked about in some of the hieroglyphics and stuff. And we just couldn't take the hieroglyphics and figure out what city they were actually talking about. So we just labeled it psych Q. So person kind of did the same thing. He's like, oh, I think there's this city out there. I'm just going to call it Z.
Interruption by World War I and Media Influence
00:13:47
Speaker
And I'm going to look for it. And so he started to angle his expeditions Further away from mapping like ah international boundaries or mapping, he would do stuff like try and find the source of rivers. You know, he started to angle away from kind of the geography of stuff and focus more and more towards the kind of archaeology or the history or anthropology kinds of things as time goes on. He does on the far end
00:14:20
Speaker
get a little into the occult as many Victorian people of this time were doing. He was a fan. Oh, yes. Let's bring her back. Madam Blavatsky. ah Madam Blavatsky making a little show here to the idea of like contacting spirits, you know, and this kind of thing. He was kind of into that. But again, so was everyone in this high end.
00:14:44
Speaker
high society Victorian, you know, rich people, elite world that he wanted so desperately to kind of be taken seriously in. So he was into that. But as he's sort of focusing more and more on trying to find Z, this thing called World War One happens.
00:15:03
Speaker
And we have to remember when World War I starts, Percy Fawcett is 47 years old. Again, 47 in 1914 years. Like, he's just like an old man, but...
00:15:19
Speaker
He's in great shape, right? And he's, I'm sure for the time he looks a decade younger than he really is. So he goes and fights in world war one for the British. And of course he sees terrible things in world war one. I do believe that he was as an officer. I think he did a pretty good job just because of his knowledge, you know, of working in the expedition jungle world of dealing with people who are in a very difficult situation. I i would guess he would, he was good at what he did. So.
00:15:50
Speaker
He has the World War One experience. I'm sure it greats on him some he does get injured. I think I know he's in a couple like mustard gas attacks and stuff. I forget.
00:16:02
Speaker
what it is that he is ultimately wounded by, but he does have some tough times, I think, but he ultimately gets over it, I guess, as best he can. And World War I ends, and then he continues his search for the velocity of Z course. I will say, I believe this is in one of his expeditions right before World War I breaks out, but he works on one of his expeditions with a guy named James Murray.
00:16:30
Speaker
And James Murray, if you watch the movie, Lost City of Z, James Murray is painted as the bad guy. And he largely is the bad guy. But for me, knowing the jungle and also having looked deeper into this story, I feel a little bit for James Murray. And let me back up and just say, how did I get into the whole Percy Fawcett thing?
00:16:53
Speaker
I had known of this story of Lost City of Z for years. There's many people in archaeology or whatever, just but but very vaguely. I just kind of knew like, oh, guy goes into jungle and ultimately disappears. And I don't know, it doesn't really find much, but it's not complete sort of archaeology. It's just a thing. But then when the movie came out, ah Lost City of Z 2016,
00:17:16
Speaker
I was like, my students and everyone, all of a sudden is going to ask me
Researching Fawcett's Life
00:17:20
Speaker
about it. Cause that's what happens if you're an archeologist and any archeology movie comes out, everyone asks you about it. So they're asking about this movie, La C of Z. And I'm like, Oh man, I gotta watch La City of Z. So I watched La City of Z. I really liked it. You know, I recommend the movie if you're just into learning about it. I thought it was well done. Of course it's not perfect in terms of telling the story of Percy Foster because they only got two hours and they they do things like they amalgamate some of the various journeys into like one journey or one expedition. you know They take bits and bobs from several different expeditions. That's okay. I understand. Well, they can't go through seven expeditions while filming a movie. right well giving a movie It would just be boring and be like, here we are on expedition number five. You know, you'd be like, hour I already saw this. So I really respect the movie and how it did. And the ending is a little hokey and over the top. What are you going to do?
00:18:07
Speaker
Is the ending a little wrong? Yes, it is. it's it's it's It's not completely honest to what happened, but it's but it's not horrible. I totally give it a pass. Watch it. I will say it's even on my list of 10 best archaeology movies. I made a YouTube video of 10 best archaeology movies like like three years ago or something. And it's on there. My favorite part about it.
00:18:29
Speaker
is how it shows day-to-day life in the jungle. It does a great job. Everyone's just carrying stuff you know through the jungle, trying to like hack their way through with machetes and stuff, and while I was watching it, I'm like, wow, that's me. That's what I've done. like There's one scene where one of the guys is carrying the big, heavy tripod for some of the mapping equipment, and I've had to carry like that very same tripod. I'm like, wow, this is great. This is very honest.
00:18:55
Speaker
And just the sweaty difficulties of the jungle. They do it great. So anyway, I watched that and then I was like, my interest was kind of peaked. And then this has happened to me ah several times is where there'll be people in like.
00:19:10
Speaker
the sort of TV and media industry or or people in in other aspects of this world who again will ask me about it and they'll ask me more specific questions or they'll want to do an interview with me and during it they'll ask me about the Lost City of Z stuff and I'm like man I gotta get better at this.
Leadership Conflicts
00:19:25
Speaker
So fairly recently I've read like David Grant's book which the movie is based on Lost City of Z and I think he does a great job.
00:19:34
Speaker
You know, it's just a deeper dive into Percy Fawcett, and if you're a real nerd, you can go for the stuff that Percy Fawcett actually wrote, like Expedition Fawcett, which came out in 1953, and it was posthumously by his son, Brian. You know, he that his son, Brian, kind of finished it off, and it's based on Percy Fawcett's notes and stuff. Anyway, in this world, this is how I've gotten into it and learned more,
00:19:58
Speaker
There's this guy, James Murray, who works with Percy and I want to say 1913. I could be a little off. James Murray comes with high recommendations because he's actually worked with Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic Explorer. And that's like insane. If you've dealt with Ernest Shackleton and done that, that is so difficult, right in this polar world. And James Murray's done this. So Percy Fawcett thinks, oh, yeah, this guy will be great on my crew. But it turns out just because you can hack it at the South Pole can't necessarily hack him in the jungle. And James Murray basically falls apart in the jungle and becomes a serious drag on the expedition. But I will say this, in looking at Percy Fawcett's expeditions, one bad part of Percy Fawcett is that he pushes his crew too hard.
00:20:49
Speaker
pushes everyone too hard. He doesn't turn around when he needs to turn around. His people are getting like terrible diseases, like their animals are dying. Even once or I think people are practically dying, you know, they're doing, they're getting horribly sick. They're, they're really on the edge of death. And like, it's like, Hey, Percy,
00:21:12
Speaker
Enough with your need to have some metal about how great your exploration is. And he even person would even complain about this. You see that times when the Royal Geographic Society would give other people metals and not him, it's like, dude, grow up. And so that's his fatal flaw, right? He goes too long for this sort of search for glory, which is so stupid.
00:21:35
Speaker
And so while in the movie, what happens is James Murray gets really sick, they finally have to like use up like their donkey and and put him on the donkey and they have to like have him right back into town. And at one point, James Murray like eats a bunch of their food and a bunch of their treats, you know, like just by himself, which is a terrible thing to do to the rest of the expedition. And you sort of hate and James Murray goes back and then like complains the world geographic society and says the person like this terrible person, you know, to cover his own shame.
00:22:03
Speaker
And when you watch the movie, you're like, James Murray, boo, you're a bad person, James Murray. But in reading the book and thinking about it, I still think James Murray was a big jerk, especially when he does that high society bullshit of like, you know, trying to blame Percy Fawcett or whatever. But Percy Fawcett was pushing them too hard. He needed to turn around because it wasn't just James Murray that was suffering. Like they were all suffering. You know, and James Murray was just the first one to crack.
00:22:30
Speaker
And why are you doing this and people are cracking and on the edge of death and they all have like malaria and dengue and it's just awful. You know, like stop the madness, man.
Fawcett's Final Expedition
00:22:45
Speaker
That's when I really hit Percy Fawcett, you know, on is like one of the important things about being a leader is kind of listening to the group in the most basic sense and knowing when it's time, knowing when it's time to turn around. Speaking of turning around, more on Percy Fawcett when we return. Hello and welcome back to the pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 150. I'm your host, one last time, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and we have been talking about Percy Fawcett and the Lost City of Z. So at this point, you're kind of like,
00:23:19
Speaker
Hey man, what about the lost city of Z? You've talked plenty about Percy Fawcett. Let's get to the city part. All right. So as I've said, you know, World War I has come and gone. The whole James Murray saga has come and gone. A bit of time has passed. Percy's going to do one last, what turns out to be last, expedition in 1924.
00:23:42
Speaker
Now, at this point, this is a 57 year old man and he's done some weird stuff in the previous years. He tried to go out by himself. One of his expeditions was totally by himself.
00:23:55
Speaker
which I don't recommend. And it didn't really do anything. He had to turn around himself because he was in really, really bad shape. But he decides one more time. And this time he's going to bring his son, Jack and Jack's friend, whose name is Raleigh Rimmel. So it's going to be him and Jack and Raleigh and like a handful of other guys. Right.
00:24:17
Speaker
This gets like big coverage. It's like in the news and stuff. And it's Percy's son, Jack is, I want to say he's like 23 years old or so. He's like right in there, you know, and his, and his friend, they're both like in their young twenties, basically, basically think of like college kids.
00:24:34
Speaker
And they had wanted to be like movie stars. they They were totally like, especially Jack, this is like this starry eyed guy, totally in awe of his own dad, totally wants to be his own dad, you know, and While both of them are in really great physical shape, neither of them have ever had any jungle experience or real experience. So these are not necessarily the best people to bring, you know, not bad, at least they're in good shape, whatever. But, but Percy's like, I'm going to do this with my son. You know, it's going to be the greatest adventure and the son totally wants to go. And the friend is like, that's cool.
00:25:15
Speaker
And their, their Hollywood dreams are falling apart of it. So I think they, they think that they need to do this thing for show, which is never a great idea in terms of why to do an expedition like this. But anyway, this time they're going to go look for the city of lost city of Z and the general area, you know, where they think this place is, it's called the motto Grosso region. And there's all this.
00:25:44
Speaker
argument as to how this finally went down. You know, you know the story at this point. You're like, just tell me the end can go because I already know the end. Well, they go on their expedition in late 1924 and into 1925. And I believe it's in May of 1925.
00:26:05
Speaker
is the last they're ever heard from again. So Percy and his son and his son's best friend, and I think a handful of other people go out into the jungle on one last Percy Fawcett expedition, you know, with the guy who's pushing too hard because he wants the spotlight and his son who wants the spotlight too and are never heard from again. What happened to Percy Fawcett and the rest of them?
00:26:36
Speaker
They died. Yep. I could beat around the bush, but yeah, that's what happened. And so the expedition is the same as all the others. You're right. They go in, they go further and further. They're looking for where he thinks Lost City of Z is. David Grant does a great job in his book, like kind of retracing the steps. David Grant does do his own research and He does show that that Percy Fawcett was writing more and more in code because he didn't want people to follow him for several different reasons. He knew how dangerous it was, too. He didn't want people trying to save him if he died. So he would put like incorrect coordinates to certain places. And there's this whole thing about this site called Dead Horse Camp, which I love this name because we do this, too, in the jungle of little names. We used to have Dead Dog Road.
00:27:23
Speaker
You'll never guess what happened there, but you do that in the jungle because the jungle all looks the same and you just label places like, you know, as to where you did a thing. Like we'll have like parked car here, you know, this kind of thing where you couldn't drive any further or camp one, stuff like that.
00:27:39
Speaker
So I totally get the dead horse camp, but the location of dead horse camp, Percy had put it in one spot. I believe in the official exploration faucet book, but it was in another spot in his actual notes that David Gran looked up. And so that's cool. I believe David Gran, I think that the dead horse camp site is the one that he thinks it makes more sense and all this kind of good stuff. So if you're,
00:28:05
Speaker
looking for the area where persi faucet was last seen via david grand location is the better location but does it really matter on you know at the at the end and and the answer is sort of no because the the outcome is the same.
00:28:24
Speaker
You know, how do I think Percy Fawcett and the rest of them ultimately died? I think they just starved to death or just dehydration. You can die of dehydration quick. And I know it feels weird. Here's like, but you're in the rainforest. No, but what about during the dry season? You know, or just what what if you can't get to clean water or something like that? There is an aspect of that where it's very dangerous and you're sweating all the time. Yes, very hot. That's what I think. they I know they were in bad shape already.
00:28:53
Speaker
And then I think they just got too destroyed. They got into an area where they just couldn't really keep going and they just died. I think that's what happened. It is possible that they were killed by either sort of bandits coming through, which would be rare in those times, but it's possible. Or, you know, one of the indigenous tribes, like that it's possible they were ultimately killed by them. That's the movie does a very Hollywood kind of ending with that. But I think that the the reality is they just sort of cease to exist out there in the jungle. You know, if one wrong move could really be bad for you, you fall down, you break a bone or, you know, whatever. And then the other people who are also in bad shape are trying to help you out. Oh, just bad scene. So that's what I think happened. You know, I think I think they all just
Modern Discoveries and Fawcett's Legacy
00:29:44
Speaker
died. And then are you ever going to find the remains? No, the jungles going to eat those suckers up. You know, people ask me things like, after somebody dies, how long does it take for their body to their corks to it rot or whatever? It was a place like the jungle, I would say it's something like on the order of three weeks, you know, and then you're just down to bones. And then from there, I mean, you're just you're never going to find these guys. They're gone.
00:30:04
Speaker
There have been like your various kind of vaguely pseudo-archaeological ideas on like, oh wait, these are the bones. Like there'll be one of the indigenous groups down there be like, oh, we have the bones of Percy positive. They'll be tested. They're not, you're not going to find that stuff.
00:30:21
Speaker
There's questions about his compass that has been found, but it was figured out that he'd left that compass like before. You know, it wasn't from his kind of final journey. It is interesting that his ring turned up in a pawn shop in 1979. That's pretty crazy. It could be a million and one explanations for that. Right. My favorite part of the end of the whole Percy Posse thing.
00:30:45
Speaker
And of course he never finds the Lost City of Z or anything because the Lost City of Z doesn't exist. Or does it? I know right there you're like, Kinkela, damn it. This is the pseudo-archaeology podcast. And you pride yourself on not closing with the or does it crap. All right. Check this out.
00:31:02
Speaker
No, the short answer is no. There's no such thing as the loss of Z. There's no such thing as El Dorado or any of that crap. But what is interesting is in the last handful of years, and especially with the advent of LIDAR, but LIDAR is basically a laser, some laser technology they can use. You can fly a plane over the jungle.
00:31:23
Speaker
and shoot these lasers down and you can basically see through the jungle foliage to the ground surface. We use this a lot in the Belize in the Maya area, right? So I know all about this stuff. They've done LiDAR scans of that area of the Amazon and they have found structures you know ah that ancient people made in the Amazon. like and And that's awesome. So what you have is you do have what you could likely call a more a slightly more complex culture from the past that only has archaeological remains than the people who are there currently. The best explanation for this is I do think there were more complex cultures. We're not talking cities.
00:32:07
Speaker
Right. And this kind of thing. But we're talking sort of like what's sometimes called like low density urban living or something like this. I think that's very for what you basically have is is a bunch of just think of like household structures, ah often very organized in their in their build in in sort of like a square, you know, where you'd have a little square plaza in between these small structures.
00:32:34
Speaker
ah that are that are built out for miles. you know So this would angle towards some sort of farming society or or or this kind of thing where the Amazon soils have classically been called poor in and quite a few areas, but yeah the human beings themselves can make the soils better through different kind of agricultural techniques from the time.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I'm sure that's very fair that they did that because you see that in the Maya world, right? I'm used to seeing this kind of stuff. So it just makes sense that you would find these kind of these structures and there's lots of them and they're they're sort of connected by there's kind of roads here and there and this kind of thing. i Again, I don't want you guys to think of it like there's a huge Maya type city in the middle of all this because we haven't really seen that and that's not necessarily true, you know, but you do have these their earthworks because you don't have a lot of stone what are you gonna use your gonna use dirt right to build up these things and they are pretty impressive and very worthy of study i'm gonna guess that most of these are gonna date to about a thousand years old little more little less you know. And it's an organized society some sort of.
00:33:46
Speaker
farming, but with also hunting and gathering too, you can have this mix of things that lived in this area that once the Spanish come in, that they're decimated by Spanish diseases. But we don't on the outside world, we don't really hear about it because it's all happening way deep in the Amazon, right? The diseases and stuff are, are moving into the Amazon much quicker than people.
00:34:11
Speaker
You know, so I i do think that's very fair and they've, they find things like dark earth, which dark earth is like fertile. They use this name terra prieta, I think for the dark earth, which I don't like because it's it's like, wait, terra prieta, what's that? It's just, it means dark soil. And we often see that in archeological sites. I do think that's a fair ball. They, they call all the structures geoglyphs.
00:34:35
Speaker
I tend to use the word geoglyphs to mean like structures on the ground that are made kind of just for show, but they're they're using that name in the Amazon area. Okay. You know, it's their structures, you know?
00:34:50
Speaker
their structures where people would have lived. The remains of households is what's out there in this kind of low density urban. you know It reminds me maybe not even necessarily of the Maya, but even of the Olmec who come before the Maya. The Olmec ultimately have one or two decently sized centers, but in the earlier days, they're kind of spread out like this.
00:35:15
Speaker
You know, I yeah again, I can see it and and the research to be done in the future is really worthwhile. And it is fun that some of these structures are found in the Matagroso region, you know, where Percy Fawcett was looking for his lost city of Z. So while there was no lost city of Z,
00:35:36
Speaker
There is this sort of slightly more complex, ancient, interesting culture who are the ancient ancestors of modern Amazonian groups. And I guarantee you there'll be more and more study on this and it'll be very interesting to ultimately study kind of this this low density but organized culture that that is no more. And in the end, I mean,
00:36:05
Speaker
You got to love Percy Fawcett, even with his flaws, you know, he's an interesting dude. And with that, I'll see you guys next time.
00:36:18
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo archaeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkela, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel. Kinkela teaches archaeology.
00:36:35
Speaker
See you guys next time.
00:36:40
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.