Amazon Stonehenge, Brazil

Amazon Stonehenge is a a megalithic stone circle located in Amapa state, Brazil, near the city of Calçoene.A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory - a find that archaeologists say shows early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed. The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet (2.75 meters) tall, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter.

On the shortest day of the year — Dec. 21 — the shadow of one of the blocks disappears when the sun is directly above it.

"It is this block's alignment with the winter solstice that leads us to believe the site was once an astronomical observatory," said Mariana Petry Cabral, an archaeologist at the Amapa State Scientific and Technical Research Institute. "We may be also looking at the remnants of a sophisticated culture."

Anthropologists have long known that local indigenous populations were acute observers of the stars and sun. But the discovery of a physical structure that appears to incorporate this knowledge suggests pre-Columbian Indians in the Amazon rainforest may have been more sophisticated than previously suspected.

 Calçoene pottery at the Amapá State Scientific and Technological  Research  Institute in Macapá, Brazil.

Credit

   Dado Galdieri for The New York Times

    Lailson Camelo da Silva, the caretaker of Amapá’s megalithic  observatory. 

Credit

   Dado Galdieri for The New York Times