Seven ceramic funerary urns were found beneath the roots of a toppled tree in a remote floodplain of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a report. The largest measured nearly 3 feet across and weighed about 770 pounds.

Bones from people, fish, and turtles lay inside several vessels. Archaeologist Márcio Amaral, of the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, helped lead the work.

Urns under a fallen Amazon tree

The tree fell at Lago do Cochila near the city of Fonte Boa, on an island raised by past Indigenous residents to keep homes dry during seasonal floods.

The urns sat about 16 inches below the surface, tucked into the floodplain soils where people once lived.

“They are large in size, with no visible ceramic lids,” said Geórgea Layla Holanda, a researcher on the team.

The design points to sealing with organic materials that have since broken down, and to careful placement beneath household floors.

Why artificial islands matter

Archaeologists have long documented engineered floodplain settlements along the Solimões and Negro rivers, where communities built up living platforms with earth and ceramic debris, a pattern linked to the Polychrome Tradition and related lifeways.

These elevated sites allowed year round housing, storage, and gatherings despite the river’s rise.

Far from empty rainforest, much of Amazonia preserves traces of planned earthworks, roads, and mounds, with thousands of structures recently detected using airborne laser mapping.

Finding urns under a tree in the Amazon’s Cochila region fits this broader picture of people shaping watery landscapes to thrive.

Clues in the Amazon urns

Human remains in the vessels connect the site to multistep funerary rites practiced in parts of lowland South America, where bones were cleaned and gathered after initial burial or exposure.

The presence of fish and turtles hints at feasting or offerings that marked these transitions, and it raises new questions about ritual timing and meaning.

“They were buried 40 cm deep, likely beneath old houses,” Holanda noted in field updates. That depth matches domestic floors and suggests the urns stood within everyday life, not in a separate cemetery.

Extracting the heavy ceramics required a scaffold of wood and vines roughly 10.5 feet above the ground. The platform let the team brace against the root ball without crushing fragile walls or losing context.

“It was a completely collaborative and unprecedented effort,” said Amaral. The crew worked slowly to free the largest urn, then stabilized it with wrap, plaster bandage, and wood cradles before transport.

How this fits Amazon history

Local fisher alerted leaders after hearing about the exposed pots, then mobilized neighbors for the trek by canoe and footpaths. His wife, organized meals while crews camped near the site.

Their precision and patience helped the urns arrive intact at the institute’s lab in Tefé, about 118 miles away as the crow flies, after a river journey that can take 10 to 12 hours.

Ceramics in the Amazon change through time in recognizable ways, which helps researchers track movements and contacts among peoples.

Scholars describe a shift from earlier rim incised styles to the polychrome forms that spread widely after about A.D. 750. on Central Amazon traditions.

Those later polychrome wares often display white slips with red or black painting, and sometimes stepped profiles or mid body flanges.

The Cochila pieces share some techniques, yet they do not map neatly onto known phases, which is why the team calls the set unprecedented for the Middle Solimões.

Ceramic urns and Amazon cultures

Fragments show a rare greenish clay in the mix, along with red bands and engobes, the thin clay coats applied to alter surface color.

The urns appear rounder than typical regional funerary forms and lack visible ceramic lids.

That combination could signal a previously undocumented local tradition or a distinct community style within a broader network.

It may also reflect choices about performance and symbolism specific to households on these raised islands.

Why this discovery matters

Amazon archaeology has shifted from seeing floodplains as temporary camps to recognizing dense, long lived settlements tied together by waterways.

The Cochila urns underscore that change, showing people who invested in place, built engineered islands, and honored their dead at home.

The work also models scientific partnerships that respect the knowledge of those who live on the river today. Local leadership shaped the logistics, season, and safety of a complex excavation in a challenging setting.

What comes next

Lab teams will clean sediments inside the vessels and study bone fragments to learn age, diet, and practices.

Microscopic residues and stable isotope tests can help tell whether feasting foods were present, and whether offerings matched season or status.

Results will not answer every question, but they will anchor this discovery within a long timeline of settlement along the Solimões.

Each shard and scrap adds a piece to how communities built, ate, grieved, and remembered in a landscape of water and clay.

The study is published in Anuário Antropológico.

Image credit: Geórgea Holanda – Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute (IDSM).

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