One LiDAR survey found over 90% of known Aquiry earthworks after two centuries found fewer than one in twelve

A LiDAR survey — airborne laser pulses that penetrate forest canopy — mapped 4,430 km of flight over Brazil's Acre and Amazonas states for a study published in Nature on 6 August 2026. Of 432 earthworks definitively attributed to the pre-colonial Aquiry civilisation, only 36 had been previously recorded in two centuries of exploration.