Peru is looking at using ancient indigenous water management techniques to keep water flowing to its residents as climate change causes the local climate to become increasingly arid. The 1,400-year-old nature-based practice makes use of a combination of man-made canals and the natural flow of groundwater to transport and retainread more
Steve Connor writes in the Independent (U.K.) newspaper that although the legendary Incas supposedly had no written language, they managed to create a huge empire which lasted from the second to the sixteenth centuries, with roads, granaries, warehouses and a complex system of government. Now anthropologist Gary Urton has discovered they used a computer-like binary code, based on knotted string.
read more
A team of explorers has discovered the ruins of a lost city in Peru that has been hidden in a remote mountain jungle for over 500 years. The city is called Cota Coca and it?s not far from the well-known tourist site of Machu Picchu. The “coca” refers to the coca leaf which grows there and was probably used in religious rituals.
British explorer Hugh Thomson and his team found the lost city, which he says is in a “remarkable state of preservation.? He?s amazed by his discovery and says, ?You’re only going to find a new Inca site once in your life.”
read more
Peruvian and British explorers have discovered a lost Inca city on a peak in the Andes that was used by the Incas as a place of resistance against Spanish conquerors in the 16th century. The site, about 25 miles from Machu Picchu, was already known to local people, and may provide new clues to the Inca civilization, since it was hardly touched by the conquistadors.
The expedition leader, British explorer Peter Frost, says the site is the largest that has been found since 1964. It may also contain evidence that could shake up current theories about the Inca civilization. ?It?s a jigsaw puzzle. What we?re finding are more pieces…to get a better sense of what was happening in that area,? Frost says.
read more