Incredible findings suggest human life in Amazon 2000 years ago

The Amazon rain forest has never been seen as a hotbed of human activity - but a new discovery suggests otherwise.

Researchers examining the area via drone have found more than 450 large scale Stone Henge-like earth works also known as geoglyphs in the north western reaches of Brazil.

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Extensive scientific analysis of the land revealed that the carefully executed ditches date back as far as two thousand years and well before European contact.

The results also indicated that humans had manipulated the rain forests not only for the purposes of creating clearings but for encouraging the proliferation of preferred species as well.

Study participant Dr Jennifer Watling a researcher at the Museum of archaeology and ethnography in Sao Paolo noted: "Our evidence that Amazonian forests have been managed by indigenous people long before European contact should not be cited as justification for the destructive unsustainable land use practice today.

"It should instead serve to highlight the ingenuity of past subsistence regimes that did not lead to forest degradation and the importance of indigenous knowledge for finding more sustainable land use alternatives.

"The purpose of the many and mass of earth works remains unknown."