Kuhikugu — Seki Lake Southern Reservoir Cluster K17
Kuhikugu K17 Reservoir · Seki Lake South Fish Reservoir
Xinguano late 1100–1600 CE·Xinguano (ancestral Kuikuro)·🇧🇷 Mato Grosso, Xingu Indigenous Park, Seki Lake southern shore, Kuhikugu hydraulic cluster, Brazil
About
About Kuhikugu — Seki Lake Southern Reservoir Cluster K17
5 m deep with clay-lined embankments, linked to three residential plazas 120 m diameter via 14-m-wide causeways. 1 m over embankment. Maxar 2021 shows the embankment as a rectilinear crop mark; LiDAR 2023 traces two spillway channels 8 m wide controlling flood. The cluster housed ~800 inhabitants and managed water for the broader Kuhikugu 50k system during 4-month dry season. Unlike Upano's Andean volcanic soils, K17 engineered Xingu floodplain seasonality itself, proving alternative Amazon water management to Andean Upano agrarian urbanism.
Why it mattersOnly Amazon reservoir aquaculture at urban scale; Xingu hydraulic counterpoint to Upano drained fields — two Amazon urbanisms via opposite water strategies (reservoir vs drainage).
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Pirarucu aquaculture — wild ranching vs captive breeding
- 02Reservoir siltation rate vs abandonment timing
Theories
- 01K17 reservoir buffered 4-month Xingu dry season, enabling year-round Kuhikugu population 50k — hydraulic storage model
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.1100–1250 CE hydraulic phase (Kuhikugu late peak)
- Period
- Xinguano late 1100–1600 CE
- Culture
- Xinguano (ancestral Kuikuro)
- Builders
- Xinguano hydraulic engineers
- Purpose
- Dry-season reservoir for fish aquaculture and manioc irrigation supporting Kuhikugu urban system
- Abandoned
- 1600 CE post-contact epidemics; reservoir silts
- Rediscovered
- 2012 Heckenberger hydraulic survey; Maxar–LiDAR 2021–2023
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
c.1100 CE
Kuhikugu hydraulic phase begins; K17 embankment raised
c.1250 CE
Reservoir fish aquaculture peak — pirarucu midden
c.1600 CE
Abandoned after Old World diseases
2023
LiDAR traces spillways and 14-m causeways to plazas
On the ground
Structures & features
12.6123° S · 53.1221° W · 328 m · 4 mapped features
Reservoir Embankment (140 m)
hydraulicClay-lined embankment 140 × 90 m × 3.5 m deep with spillways
12.6125° S · 53.1225° WPirarucu Fish-Bone Midden
deposit1.2 m midden of pirarucu bones and terra preta on embankment
12.6120° S · 53.1218° WResidential Plaza Satellites (3)
plazaThree 120 m plazas with mounds linked via 14-m causeways
12.6118° S · 53.1220° WSpillway Channels (8 m)
hydraulicTwo 8 m spillway channels controlling reservoir flood
12.6127° S · 53.1215° W