“Lost Civilizations Beneath the Jungle? 🌿 Graham Hancock’s Amazon Expedition Uncovers Secrets That Could Rewrite Everything We Know About History 😱🗿”

In April 2024, author and explorer Graham Hancock stepped deep into the heart of the Amazon Basin near the Bolivian-Brazilian border, spending five weeks exploring dense rainforest, ancient earthworks and river systems untouched by mainstream archaeology.

While most researchers still regarded the region as culturally peripheral, Hancock believed he was on the trail of something far greater: a civilisation lost to time, hidden beneath the canopy of the Amazon Rainforest.

Beginning on April 3, Hancock and his small team of local guides and drone-specialist arrived at a remote clearing near the Cotoca area, located some 100 km east of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Guided by recent LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) surveys indicating massive earth-platforms, causeways and unusual geometric alignments, the expedition set up camp atop an old terrace overlooking what appeared to be the remains of a large settlement.

In his own blog he wrote: “The jungle swallowed it.

But the patterns remain.

On April 12, while flying a drone at dawn along a narrow river channel, Hancock watched the grainy live feed shift from trees to what appeared to be a raised rectangular platform about 120 metres long, flanked by two parallel ridges.

He radioed his guide: “We’ve found alignment here—look at the geometry of those ridges.

This isn’t random.

” The guide nodded in his headphones: “This is something the locals haven’t even walked across for decades.”

Over the next days, Hancock trekked into the jungle beneath looming kapok trees and fought through swarms of insects, measuring alignments of earthen mounds using a handheld compass.

On April 17, he recorded on video:

“Here, at this huge circular mound—over nine metres tall—we are looking at a structure that shouldn’t exist in the accepted story of Amazonian prehistory.

The standard model says only small villages existed here.

Yet this screams monumental.”

Later that afternoon, he sat with local indigenous consultant Diego Alvarado near the river bank at dusk.

Alvarado leaned forward: “Our ancestors spoke of places where the jungle grew over stones that were not carved by them.

They called the place Tahuamanu, meaning ‘lost path’.

No one believed it was more than legend.

” Hancock replied: “What I’m seeing matches that legend—only now the stones are earth, but their shape and grid pattern is unmistakable.”

Hancock’s interest in this region began years earlier, when he reviewed a 2022 Nature article detailing LiDAR findings of the Casarabe culture in Bolivia—platforms, pyramids rising 20 metres, and causeways radiating across 500 km².

He described it as “a civilisation of extraordinary scale hidden beneath the rainforest floor”.

In the Amazon expedition, he believed he had uncovered new evidence: tree-covered earthworks aligned north-northwest, raised platforms some six metres high, and river canals leading outward from central nodes.

On April 21 the team documented one raised U-shaped terrace 150 metres long, surrounded by dense forest but clearly defined by satellite imagery.

Hancock exclaimed in his journal: “The north-northwest orientation again — this is recurring.”

Back at base camp, a heated discussion erupted with geologist Dr María Fernández, flown in for two days to examine soil samples.

She raised an eyebrow at a charcoal-rich layer found beneath the mound.

“If these alignments date to around AD 500–1400, as the Casarabe culture is dated, this fits.

But the scale… it’s ten times what we’ve seen elsewhere.

” Hancock leaned in: “Which means mainstream archaeology may have seriously underestimated the ‘Amazon question’.”

On April 29, during one of the last nights in the field, Hancock sat beneath the sky darkened by the jungle canopy and reflected:

“Here in the Amazon, we are not simply mapping forgotten villages.

We are walking on the outlines of a hidden civilisation—one that refused to vanish quietly.

The implications? That our entire narrative of the Americas before Columbus may be far too narrow, far too Euro-centric, and missing realities that the forest has kept secret for millennia.”

The Amazon, Hancock wrote later, “remains a true terra incognita” in archaeological terms.

He noted that with 5.

5 million km² covered by rainforest the region’s exploration has been minimal compared to places like ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia.

Critics are cautious.

Archaeologist Dr Peter Reynolds commented: “Finding large earthworks is significant, yes.

But making claims of a ‘lost civilisation’ requires rigorous dating, excavations, and peer-reviewed publication.

It’s exciting—but extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.

” Hancock acknowledges this: “I offer hypotheses, not final answers.

I invite scientific scrutiny—but first, the jungle must show us its secrets.”

As Hancock and his team left the rainforest on May 3, carrying drone footage, soil cores, geophysical data and hours of coordinate logs, they were already planning a return expedition for late 2025.

Their goal: to excavate a test trench, conduct radiocarbon dating and search for cultural artefacts that could anchor their findings in time.

“If we succeed,” Hancock said, “this could force a rewrite of how we understand prehistoric human networks in the Americas.”

For now, the Amazon holds its silence, but the rumours of wood-and-earth monuments, networked settlements and ancient canals are growing louder.

Graham Hancock’s journey has opened a door—one that might lead not just into the jungle’s depths, but into a forgotten chapter of human history.