The largest tropical rainforest in the world, which spans more than two million square miles in South America, is home to many unsettling mysteries as well as some stunning ones. It is so huge that it would have been the ninth-largest country in the world if it had been any country. And this forest alone gives the entire planet 20% of its oxygen. Nearly 60% of the forest in South America is located in Brazil, as can be seen by looking at the continent's map. From the outside, the Amazon rainforest is as stunning as it is unsettling and perilous on the inside. Additionally, there are people residing in this forest who are cut off from the outside world. Due to the immense size of the forest, there are still many areas of it that have not been investigated, as well as numerous mysteries that have not been discovered. Join us as we learn more about the startling Amazon rainforest discoveries that have the entire world in shock! Geoglyphs Recently, geologists discovered hundreds of circles in the Amazon rainforest's ground that date back thousands of years. These geoglyphs indicate that humans have been modifying the landscape here for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. These rings continue to perplex scientists, who are unable to determine their significance. The Amazon has long been viewed as a pure ecosystem that was mostly unaffected by people until the arrival of the Europeans. However, this latest discovery shows that people were present centuries before than we thought. The discovery of these 450 geometrically designed ditches in Acre Brazil, which occupy over 13,000 square kilometers of land, was made possible by recent deforestation in the region. These geoglyphs were unnoticed for hundreds of years because they were hidden by trees but growing deforestation in the area made them apparent from the air. Archaeologists are unsure why these circles were created; there were insufficient artefacts to determine whether it was a settlement or a defensive measure. Some researchers believe these could have been ritual Gathering places. Jennifer Watling, the principal researcher, and her team reconstructed 6 000 years of plant and fire history in the vicinity of two of these geoglyphs. They observed that humans had been tampering with the bamboo trees to construct temporary clearings for these geoglyphs. This also supports the hypothesis that indigenous peoples managed the Amazonian woods long before European contact. Watling believes that this evidence of human contact highlights the ingenuity of previous subsistence regimes that did not result in forest degradation.
