In the Amazon region, which has been badly neglected in archaeological research, advanced cultures about which very little is known existed in pre-Hispanic times. The DAI’s Commission for Archaeology of Non-European Cultures has therefore been investigating settlement centres in the savanna region known as Llanos de Mojos in the Bolivian Amazon Basin in a project under way since 1999.
Thanks to funding from the German Research Foundation, airborne laser scanning surveys were carried out in the area around Bella Vista in 2011 for the first time in the history of archaeological research in the Amazon Basin. A ring-ditch enclosure was sighted near the village of Bella Vista and investigated more closely from 2007 to 2015. Excavation sections revealed that the site was in use for just a short time (13th/14th century) and then abandoned.
Map of the eastern Llanos de Mojos (Heiko Prümers, DAI KAAK) 
All finds from the KAAK project are stored in proper conditions in the new depot at the Museo Arqueológico Kenneth Lee (Photo: Heiko Prümers, DAI KAAK) 
Ring ditch complex near Bella Vista (Photo: Heiko Prümers, D-DAI-BN-BOL-08_0977) 
One of the excavation areas with pot burials (Photo: Heiko Prümers, DAI KAAK)