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Machu Picchu older than expected, study reveals
- gojomo 5y agoUsing advanced radiocarbon dating, it may be "up to several decades older than previously thought". And "at least 20 years older" – back to about AD1420, instead of AD1440-1450. So this isn't a massive revision changing big conceptions about pre-Columbian Incan society - just a hint Spanish interpretations of native records, post-conquest, somewhat off.
- mprev 5y agoIn use from 1420 to 1530. 20 years older than previously thought.
- nikkinana 5y agoI'd say history proves "scientists" are wrong more than they're right. Let that sink in.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoI haven’t made it to Manchu Picchu yet, but as an Old World archaeology enthusiast, I visited some Mayan sites in the past year and was way more impressed than I expected to be. If you think like I used to & and assume that all the cool old stuff is in the Old World, consider challenging that assumption :) Calakmul in Mexico was my favorite. I loved climbing the steps of a pyramid, rising above the jungle canopy, and then seeing a pyramid twice as high staring back at me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calakmul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calakmul
- jjeaff 5y agoFrom the top of one of the tall structures in Calakmul, you should be able to see El Mirador on a clear day, possibly with binoculars. El Mirador is on the Guatemalan side and is also a pretty amazing site, especially if you want to see what some of these sites look like before they are fully excavated and cleaned up for tourist crowds. El Mirador is deep in the jungle and requires a multi-day journey, preferably with mules to get there. When I went several years ago, I remember only crossing paths with one other group of tourists for the whole 60 mile round trip journey.
- lostlogin 5y agoI recommend the region, and just getting yourself or a small group into the area and going to smaller sites. Machu Picchu is impressive. However it is overwhelmed by tourists and the modern structure in the valley below detract from it. The small sites on the various trails in are quiet, and incredible. Many haven’t been reconstructed is dubious fashion. It’s am amazing area.
- holoduke 5y agohttps://sacredsites.com/ https://sacredsites.com/ For lots of interesting places like this
- bobf 5y agoI can't recommend Calakmul enough. It is a far larger and more interesting site than Chichen Itza, by a substantial margin. And, there are at most a few hundred visitors per day (we saw maybe ~100 total the day we visited) vs 6000+ per day at Chichen Itza. You can climb all the structures at Calakmul and the understanding you get of the scope, views of the rest of the site and surrounding area, etc are incredible. Here are a few pictures I took at Calakmul of two of the many large structures: https://500px.com/photo/1027901445/Ruins-at-Calakmul-Structure-II-by-Bob-Feldbauer/ https://500px.com/photo/1027901445/Ruins-at-Calakmul-Structu... https://500px.com/photo/1027483989/Calakmul-Ruins-Structure-I-by-Bob-Feldbauer/ https://500px.com/photo/1027483989/Calakmul-Ruins-Structure-... The "Mayan Train" is currently under construction and may eventually bring many more tourists to the area - I would highly suggest going before that happens and everything there changes. (It will be great for the region in terms of economic impact, but the status quo with few visitors on incredible sites is really magnificent.) The ruins at Becan, Xpuhil (Xpujil), and Coba are all also really incredible - and only a handful of people visit them per day. You can easily stay in Bacalar, visit Chetumal in the morning, drive to see Becan and Xpujil in the afternoon, and then visit Calakmul the next day. (Driving back to Tulum/Playa del Carmen/etc makes for a long drive afterwards, but is certainly doable.) Fly into Cancun, rent a car, and then go drive down the coast and plan various stops for a really great trip. Playa del Carmen and Tulum are fun, of course, in an "international tourism" sense. Bacalar and Chetumal are also "tourist towns", but they are very different - think of a small, charming beach/lake town with an older, more original/authentic feel.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoPrepay for the rental car, too. If you prepay, you'll get the agreed upon price. If you don't, you may find your rental car doubles or triples in price. Best to book on the rental car's website.
- ncmncm 5y agoConsidering the radically different quality of stonemason work in older structures, and in lower parts of structures, used by Incas, it is hard to understand why historians insist everything in Peru was built by Incas immediately preceding the Spanish invasion. It is often quite easy to distinguish later Inca repairs from masterful original construction. Pushing back use of Machu Picchu a few decades is fine, but I think they still have nothing material to suggest when construction began. It could have been built a thousand years before, abandoned, and then re-occupied and repaired later. It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.
- MichaelZuo 5y agoHas there been carbon dating work done on the bottom layer of stones?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Zenst 5y agoOnly way to do that would be if there was organic matter trapped when it was constructed. At least that is my understanding of this regarding carbon dating.
- ncmncm 5y agoIt would be possible to do surface-luminescence analysis, which reveals when a stone surface was last exposed to sunlight. But I have not heard of any such done in Peru. Only a few Egyptian samples were analyzed, that seemed to place them 500 years "too early". There seems little enthusiasm to follow up. Most specialists see little value: either the results match what is already believed, or they show that everybody but a few cranks were wrong. The first is a waste of precious grants; the latter a big nuisance.
- MichaelZuo 5y ago
- graupel 5y agoWe did the Inca Trail years ago and the tour guides kept talking about people from 'Jail' - which we later found out was Yale sounds like with a Peruvian accent!
- zzt123 5y agoHow was the experience?
- alberth 5y agoIf you want to go down a rabbit hole on theories of advanced pre-ice age civilizations, here you go. https://youtube.com/c/brienfoerster https://youtube.com/c/brienfoerster
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- AlotOfReading 5y agoIt's honestly baffling how popular alternative history and other such conspiracy nonsense is to the public, even for entertainment. I don't know anyone who believes there's a conspiracy to hide the proof of P=NP, but major television networks have multiple productions dedicated to archaeological conspiracy theories. They're always so random too, like "Egyptians had US military helicopters".
- m0llusk 5y agoIt is baffling to me that people get so angry about what starts out as some fairly basic observations. The Sphinx, for example, has an obviously mismatched head that represents one of the later kings and also has some interesting weathering patterns. Also, many very old monuments have similar characteristics being made of very large stones without ornament. Some go way too far with their theories, but there is plenty of room to speculate about prehistory without being accused of randomness or conspiracy theories. Early observations of ruins in the Americas concluded that some ancient civilization had traveled and built everything there since native Americans were considered to be primitives. Giving credit to the Maya for their language and literature was considered a weird conspiracy at first but ongoing study proved otherwise.
- timeon 5y agoLooking at those ruins one can forget how relatively young that place is. And looking at mostly modern buildings at the village I come from - easy to forget that the place is much older than Machu Picchu. It was probably luck and the fact that my place is (and was) irrelevant - so it could survive.
- fsckboy 5y agodo you come from Poland?
- CobrastanJorji 5y agoI remember on my way back from Machu Picchu, I was still thinking about how relatively young it was when we were touring Lima and were shown Huaca Pucllana, a clay/adobe pyramid in downtown Lima that's probably around 1,000 years older than Macchu Pichu. What's neat is had Lima not been in a desert, 1500 years of rainfall would've ruined the place.
- photojosh 5y agoDo you know about Caral? One of the oldest known cities in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral
- everyone 5y agoI can't read "Machu Picchu" without thinking of this https://youtu.be/xcbkOtptlgY https://youtu.be/xcbkOtptlgY
- sharmi 5y agoFor deep dive into Inca culture, including Machu Pichu, check out the Fall of Civilizations channel. It is hours long but well worth the time. This creator is more sensitive towards the local culture that most other television or YouTube creators. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BRB9dJmZhVk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BRB9dJmZhVk
- mark336 5y agoI am a Peruvian interested in Incan culture. I think its way interesting that they think that because Machu Picchu was built 20 years earlier, that Pachacuti, who is thought to have built Machu Picchu was conquering tribes much earlier. I believe it makes sense that Pachacuti built Machu Picchu, works by ancient rulers were often built by the rulers themselves when they were alive. I believe Pachacuti built Machu Picchu. Some people think its more ancient, but Incans like everybody else are normal people, they built this monument for prestige during the reign of the greatest Inca.