Summary

The Amazonian forest has long been considered as virgin of any ancient culture. However, for several decades, researchers have been able to distinguish traces of past human occupation. They estimate that in 1492, at the time of the arrival of the Europeans on the continent, the Amazon counted between 8 and 10 million individuals, soon decimated by the viruses brought from the Old Continent. Today, archaeologists are discovering and studying pre-Columbian ceramic funerary urns decorated with mysterious and complex designs in human and animal forms. The stylistic analysis of these urns has allowed the identification of hundreds of different cultures that populated the Amazon basin. All of them have in common the personification of the animals that they represent, which suggests that they were animist.