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High school student leads archaeologists to lost Inca settlement
- andrewstuart 6y agoSounds like Dora The Explorer to me. Was it Dora The Explorer?
- leptoniscool 6y agoSurprising that we can still find these things in 2020, and this site isn't buried at all
- BurningFrog 6y agoArgentina has had a few rough decades. Maybe archeology in this very remote corner hasn't been a big priority for anyone.
- mikeyouse 6y agoThere's always the problem that Mexico has seen - it's not cheap or easy to protect ruins once they're discovered. In some places, there are tons of artifacts so once they're on the map, you have to expend resources protecting them. If they're not of academic/historical importance, it could be better to leave them 'undiscovered' so they're not pillaged.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoIn my experience, that's rarely a good idea. No documentation means no ability to do regular monitoring or tie records together over years, irrespective of funding. Simply put, not ideal. The way it's handled in the US is to simply require auth on the site databases.
- londons_explore 6y agoHaving been to Peru, I can tell you that there are Inca ruins everywhere. A few are signposted and tourist attractions, but many many more are just abandoned in the mountains. There are enough that if you take a hike off the footpath, there's a good chance you'll just come across one.
- StavrosK 6y agoSame thing happens in Greece, where if you want to build a house in, say, Athens, you run the real risk of finding ancient artifacts when digging the foundation and having your build halted so archeologists can come in and take them.
- detritus 6y agoSame thing all over and I know for a fact that construction companies in my home town would often simply destroy or bury artefacts they found, rather than risk a long and costly halt to a job.
- kunfuu 6y agoThat's terrifying, given so much of the ancient world is still unknown to us.
- londons_explore 6y agoThe London Crossrail project (underground railway) specifically disallowed any employee to look at the dirt they were digging, just incase they saw a bone or an ancient pot. They put extra covers and opaque screens in the conveyor belts for dirt so that none could be seen by accident.
- pjmlp 6y agoThessaloniki subway? :)
- deleted 6y ago
- cbanek 6y agoThat's interesting, in the first picture there are some Saguaro cacti in the picture, and I didn't think those were outside of the Sonora desert! Or are those a different species that only looks alike?
- AlotOfReading 6y agoI'm pretty sure those are E. terscheckii, a.k.a. the "Argentine Saguaro". They're semi-popular as ornamentals up in the Sonoran too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinopsis_terscheckii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinopsis_terscheckii
- cbanek 6y agoFantastic, thanks so much for the assist! Incredibly interesting, I love Saguaro (live in Tucson so they are everywhere). It's interesting these ones have mescaline in them too! The flowering looks a bit different though.
- 8bitsrule 6y agoThe region seems to be best-known for its 'San Jose' ceramics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X19304973 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X1... An overview of the region & its history: http://www.condorvalley.org/explore-condor-valley/diaguita-history/ http://www.condorvalley.org/explore-condor-valley/diaguita-h... Looks like the 'Inca' element isn't a complete surprise: "In 1535 Diego de Almagro was commissioned by the Spanish crown to occupy Collasuyu, the southernmost region of the Inca empire. With 200 Spanish soldiers and 2000 Indian mercenaries from Peru, he marched over the Puna de Atacama into what are today the provinces of Jujuy and Salta."