23 May 2011 - One of the world's greatest ancient civilisations may have been built on llama droppings, a new study has found. Machu Picchu, the famous Inca city set in the Peruvian Andes, celebrates the centenary of its "'discovery" by the outside world this July. Dignitaries will descend on site for a glitzy event in July marking 100 years since US explorer Hiram Bigham came upon the site, but the origins of Machu Picchu were far less glamorous. According to a study published in archeological review Antiquity, llama droppings provided the basis for the growth of Inca society. It was the switch from hunter-gathering to agriculture 2,700 years ago that first led the Incas to settle and flourish in the Cuzco area where Machu Picchu sits, according to the study's author Alex Chepstow-Lusty. Mr Chepstow-Lusty, of the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima, said the development of agriculture and the growing of maize crops is key to the growth of societies. "Cereals make civilisations," he said. Mr Chepstow-Lusty has spent years analysing organic deposits in the mud of a small lake, "more of a pond really," called Marcaccocha on the road between the lower-lying jungle and Machu Picchu.
No comments:
Post a Comment