Llanos de Moxos – Casarabe Culture Monuments
Llanos de Moxos · Llanos de Mojos · Casarabe Forest Islands and Causeways · Beni Earthen Monuments
Late Intermediate, Casarabe culture·Casarabe (Moxos) savanna farmers·🇧🇴 Beni Department, Bolivia
Coordenação-Geral de Observação da Terra/INPE · CC BY-SA 2.0
About
About Llanos de Moxos – Casarabe Culture Monuments
Seasonally flooded savanna concealing one of the New World's least-expected urban landscapes: Casarabe culture (500–1400 CE) built 147 forest-island mound settlements linked by up to 1,000 km of raised causeways and canals across 4,500 km² of Llanos de Moxos. Largest site Cotoca spans 300 ha with 21-m-high monumental cones atop raised causeways aligned astronomically. 2022 Nature LiDAR (Prümers) proved population densities rivaling contemporary highland polities, with hydraulic forest-island infill and zigzag causeways functioning as dams and processional avenues; communities managed savanna floods via fish weirs and raised fields 2,000 ha extent.
Why it mattersDemonstrated lowland Neotropical urbanism independent of Andes; forced-perspective causeway hydraulics and forest-island ecotopes are Amazonian signatures redefining pre-Columbian demography.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Labor mobilization for 1,000 km causeways without draft animals
- 02Whether astronomical alignments encoded flood calendar or elite procession cosmology
Theories
- 01Causeway as flood-retention dam directing fish to weirs—fishery-based staple
- 02Casarabe as Llanos analogue to Mesopotamian tell urbanism
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.500–1400 CE
- Period
- Late Intermediate, Casarabe culture
- Culture
- Casarabe (Moxos) savanna farmers
- Builders
- Casarabe Moxos peoples
- Purpose
- Flood-managed savanna urbanism with causeway-dam network and monumental platform hierarchy
- Abandoned
- c.1400 CE climate aridification + Inca incursion
- Rediscovered
- 1960s Denevan & Erickson; 2022 Prümers et al. Nature LiDAR
- Excavation
- Excavation ongoing
500 CE
Initial forest-island mound construction
1000 CE
Causeway network integration
1220
Cotoca monumental cone completed
2022
Prümers et al. publish Nature LiDAR of Casarabe urbanism
On the ground
Structures & features
14.8200° S · 64.8500° W · 155 m · 3 mapped features
Cotoca Monumental Mound
platform mound21-m conical platform with surrounding moat and plaza
14.9000° S · 64.7000° WLandívar Causeway Junction
causewayFour-way 5-m-high causeway interchange with canal
14.8200° S · 64.8500° WEl Cerrito Forest Island Settlement
settlementDomestic island mound with reservoir
14.7100° S · 64.9200° W
Gallery