This photo essay from Wired.com shows arial images of Stone Age inhabitants of the region along the Peru/Brazil border. Objects from the modern world testify that they trade with intermediaries who have contact with the world outside the jungle and that they may be more aware of the outside world than it is of them. They apparently practice some farming and seem to be thriving, which comes as good news to anthropologists and activists who are concerned that these cultures are vanishing.
We can imagine that older advanced civilizations like Mesopotamia, China, or India may have also lived alongside hunter-gatherer societies in the unexploited wilderness that surrounded them. It is even possible that some of these ancient memories survived in myths about animal-human hybrids, giants, green-men, and wilderness spirits.
This is also a testimony of how our world still contains so many places that those of us in more complex societies know nothing about. However, a story like this would not have been newsworthy only a century ago because the full effect of western imperialism and exploration had not yet been entirely felt. The fact is that these older societies are a dwindling remnant or our universal heritage as human beings.
