Human Remains Proved That Machu Picchu Is Actually Older Than We Previously Thought
Machu Picchu, a 15th-century Inca site in southern Peru, is actually several decades older than previously thought, according to research led by an anthropologist named Richard Burger from Yale University.
In 2021, Burger and a team of researchers from multiple U.S.-based institutions used a type of radiocarbon dating called accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to date the human remains of 26 individuals that were recovered from four burial sites around Machu Picchu during the early 20th century.
The results of the study indicated that the famous mountain settlement is at least 20 years older than the historical record showed, raising questions about scientists’ understanding of Inca chronology. The findings reveal that Machu Picchu was in use from at least A.D. 1420 to A.D. 1530.
Historical texts written by Spanish conquistadors who invaded the Inca Empire in the 1530s indicate that the Inca Emperor Pachacuti seized power in A.D. 1438 and conquered the lower Urubamba Valley where Machu Picchu is located.
Based on these texts, scholars have estimated that the site was built between 1440 and 1450, depending on how long it took for Pachacuti to gain total control of the region.
But after conducting some tests, Burger and his team argued that the timeline was inaccurate and that historians could not completely rely on the texts.
“Until now, estimates of Machu Picchu’s antiquity and the length of its occupation were based on contradictory historical accounts written by Spaniards in the period following the Spanish conquest,” said Burger.
“This is the first study based on scientific evidence to provide an estimate for the founding of Machu Picchu and the length of its occupation, giving us a clearer picture of the site’s origins and history.”
The bones and teeth used in the analysis likely belonged to “retainers,” a group of royal attendants who lived in the great stone palace at Machu Picchu and worked as artisans or religious figures all year long.
Additionally, funerary items buried alongside the remains further supported the idea that they were associated with royalty.
The bones showed little evidence of participation in heavy labor such as construction, meaning that they were likely from the period when the site operated as a country palace, not when it was being built.
The remains were removed from four cemeteries in 1912 and brought to the U.S. by a Yale-affiliated explorer named Hiram Bingham III.
He stumbled upon the ruins of Machu Picchu while searching for Vilcabamba, a rumored “lost city” of the Incas where the elites supposedly escaped after Spanish conquistadors arrived.
Bingham is sometimes referred to as the “discoverer” of Machu Picchu, which is untrue because local people living near the site had known about it for years.
The human remains and artifacts he took were kept in the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. In the mid-2000s, Peruvians called for the university to return the items to their rightful home.
Now, all the findings from Bingham’s archaeological expedition have been sent back to Cusco, where they are preserved in the Museo Machu Picchu.
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