Incas Last Refuge Discovered
By John Noble Wilford
March 19, 2002 Lima, Peru - Every generation or so, explorers of the high Andes of Peru come upon an elaborate sacred place or city that had been unknown to archaeologists studying the Incan civilization. The most impressive still is Machu Picchu, discovered in 1911, and no important "lost city" has come to light since the 1960's. Not, it seems, until now.
A team of explorers and archaeologists announced yesterday that it had found extensive ruins of a large Incan settlement 22 miles southwest of Machu Picchu. There on steep slopes, among the clouds at elevations up to 13,000 feet, were terraces, roads, cemeteries and the stones of more than 100 forsaken dwellings and storehouses. The settlement, on the mountain Cerro Victoria, is surrounded by even higher peaks, objects of worship in the Incan religion.
Archaeologists said the site might have been a place of last refuge by the Incas, before their capitulation to Spanish conquistadors. After some Inca rebelled and nearly overthrew the Spanish in 1536, the surviving forces hid out in this remote region of Vilcabamba. They defied the invaders for 36 years, until 1572.
The announcement of the discovery was made by the National Geographic Society, which helped pay for the exploration, and at a news conference in Lima. The team leader is Peter Frost, a British photographer who lives in Cuzco, Peru, and has spent 30 years investigating Incan archaeology. Other members included several archaeologists, led by Dr. Alfredo Valencia of the University of San Antonio Abad in Cuzco. "This site may ultimately yield a record of Inca civilization from the very beginning to the very end, undisturbed by European contact," Mr. Frost said.
The explorers said they found pottery from two distinct periods. Some ceramics were in the style of the Incan formative period. The first Inca emerged in about 1200 in southern Peru, and their empire flourished in the 15th century, only to collapse before Spanish invaders in 1532. Other pieces of pottery are thought to be from the time of the last-ditch rebellion against Spanish rule. "This is one of the most important sites to be located in the Vilcabamba region since the Inca abandoned it over 400 years ago," said Dr. Johan Reinhard, an archaeologist of high- altitude cultures in South America, in a statement issued by the geographic society.
The explorers first caught a distant glimpse of the site in 1999. They saw what appeared to be a sacred platform on one of the peaks. On a return expedition last June, they left the nearest road and hiked and climbed for four exhausting days. On the day they arrived at the site, "We ran into an Inca wall and a complex of buildings in the definite Inca style," Mr. Frost said last week in a telephone interview from Cuzco. "We knew from that moment we had something special." Two Indian families were found living among the ruins. But the place appeared on no maps or in any archaeological reports.
Mr. Frost plans to return in June to make a detailed map of the site and conduct more excavations. Funeral towers - small, cylindrical structures made of stone - are a distinctive part of landscape. The explorers surmised that these might have been used for elite burials, but looters had made off with all skeletons and any grave goods. Some skeletons were found in underground tombs. Mr. Frost suggested two reasons people lived in such a remote, lofty place. One attraction may have been the nearby silver mines. The other was probably the view. "It's the only place in the area that has a superb view of all the nearby snow peaks," Mr. Frost said. "They were probably holding religious ceremonies in worship of these peaks and celestial and solar observations on these platforms to keep the Inca calendar."
Victoria’s Secret Revealed
A Preliminary Report of the 2001 NGS Vilcabamba Expedition
by Gary Ziegler February 2, 2002
A large crew of wranglers, field workers and assorted specialists supported by mules, horses and helicopters descended on the Vilcabamba range near the ceremonial site of Choquequirao to conduct a month long exploration and study of a sizable Inca period settlement during June, 2001.
Background- Having passed nearby on various adventure tour supported expeditions, we had long suspected that a prominent cone shaped mountain and nearby ridge area contained interesting Inca possibilities but saved investigation until we could do it properly. We preferred not to enter a new area without being able to study and protect it. Once a trail is opened, a site is quickly looted after the investigators leave.
Peter Frost, a Cusco based writer who had accompanied me on previous expeditions and as adventure trek guide for our company located several looted burial chambers on a ridge leading to the mountain. He and travel associate Scott Gorsuch became fascinated with the idea of exploring the top of the mountain.
They approached me with the idea of forming a new project with proposal for National Geographic sponsorship. Scott, a California psychologist is an experienced, eager grant writer so the project was born. Peter invited in a team of experienced Cusco archaeologists headed by Machu Picchu specialist Alfredo Valencia. We brought in Barry Walker and local Manu Expeditions to outfit and staff the field work. Barry was not along in the field but coordinated with us almost daily via satellite phone in Cusco.
Peter served as the administrative director of the project and deserves the credit for pulling the NGS grant together. Alfredo, Peter and I shared leadership in the field. Alfredo was titled 'Principal Investigator' and as such was overall in charge of archaeological coordination, excavations, permits, etc. I was in charge of the expedition and operational affairs, coordinating camp staff, workers and logistics in my role as Co-Leader. The three of us ( Peter, Alfredo, Gary) coordinated general activities and the agenda in the field. Alfredo, archaeologists, Carlos Silva, Zenobio Valencia and I also headed excavation teams for the different sectors of the site. It was my responsibility to map and determine the extent of the site as well. Archeophysicist Meg Watters from US based Geophysical Survey Systems flew in with a Ground Penetrating Radar Unit (GPR) requiring extensive site preparation before her arrival Basically it was a team effort that worked well .
Operations- We marched in overland with NGS film crew and a long string of mules in tow, passing through the large ceremonial site of Choquequirao then out several days more into the wild Vilcabamba beyond. At our destination the advance trail cutting team reported that we had hit the jackpot. The mountain was covered with ruins. A permanent camp was set high up and exploratory teams were dispatched to determine the extent and locations of structures and features of interest. This was a preliminary investigation with plans for ongoing future excavation. Our goal was to identify and sample selected areas within the time we had available.
We identified several large constructed platforms as likely places to use the radar to advantage. My main task was to clear the area of debris, survey and stake out grids needed to use the radar unit effectively. Most of the others scrambled up and about investigating the mountain top as the point of principal interest. As suspected the summit was lined with chambers but sadly all seem looted and empty.
After Alfredo arrived by helicopter with Meg Watters, we divided the site into several zones for selected excavation. One team lead by Zenobio worked the summit platform on the mountain while Alfred and Carlos worked a group near the lower extent of the site. I worked with Meg and the GPR unit, scanning a platform lower down, then several of the platforms high up. I also excavated several areas which we thought contained burial chambers. Our excavation was in the form of test pits mostly determined by anomalies indicated by the GPR.
Getting about was difficult. the work areas stretched from about 3100 meters to well above 3800 meters on steep mountain slopes and ridges interspersed with cliffs and dense cloud forest vegetation. However, We did manage to roughly map out the site and determine its extent.
Results from GPR scanning were disappointing. Although covered walls were revealed beneath the lower platform indicating that it had once been a building most other anomalies proved to be only disturbed soil and rocks. The reflective nature of the highly micassized metamorphic rock seemed to create many unproductive readings.
History
Victoria or Corihuayrachina as we decided to name the site, lies near an Inca road which led to Choquequirao from the interior of Vilcabamba. The extenuation of Cerro Victoria’s ridge to the east contains rich silver deposits. The ridge within a few hundred meters of the summit is pockmarked with mine workings that may date back to Inca times. Some were last worked as late as the 1980s and certainly were worked during the colonial period. The nearby ( 1/2 day walk) colonial era village of Yanama was the base for the mining. As a result, most but not all of the burial chambers and structural remains around and associated with the Corihuayrachina complex were looted over several centuries. We speculate that the Corhuayrachina site may have at least in part served as support community for nearby mining during Inca times.
It is unlikely that any of the early visitors to Choquequirao found Corihuayrachina. The site lacks monumental constructions that would have attracted attention. Although only 4.5 air miles distant, it is a world away across a deep canyon with connecting Inca routes long lost and severed. The site was never documented, reported or known to the outside world until our present investigation
Site Description
The site is situated in several clustered groups separated by considerable distance and altitude and numerous scattered individual remnants along the flatter areas and ridge tops of the large mountain (Cerro Victoria). All are on the upper third of the mountain above 3000 meters. Below this the slopes generally fall away too steeply to have supported living areas. We did look but found nothing The remains are all on the west and south facing sides, the east/north side being extremely steep with exposed rock cliffs. The total site complex fits within two Kilometer squares on the new government topo map for the region.
Preliminary conclusions
Most structures at Corihuayrachina are circular, many with low walls of 1/2 meter or less. These are common throughout the Vilcabamba. We have always thought that these were pre-Inca but here we have Inca or Inca influenced pottery found within the floor debris. One of the groups is clearly rectangular Inca architecture and a well made rectangular building which we think is a Qolca or storehouse sits high up on the slopes of Cerro Victoria. I believe that most of the round structures that I examined were dwellings but there were several types and sizes in different locations. Some were simple low wall affairs that I believe served as retaining platforms for wooden houses now long gone. Other large ones could have been corrals for llamas. Some features such as the large ridge top platforms are ceremonial but we found no obvious ceremonial architecture within the complex.
Our consensus for the moment is that the rectangular group represents an Inca administrative center within a settlement of imported foreign workers or Mitayos.
We examined what seems like an unusual number of burial mounts and chambers scattered throughout the site. All were low status, containing human remains and few burial accouterments such as pots, tools, ornaments which are normally expected in such burials. This influenced our opinion that the inhabitants, at least the ones that were interned here had very few processions.
From my experience, the site has the layout and `feel' of a temporary or hastily built settlement of low status workers, perhaps imported from some conquered region, incorporating an Inca administrative compound. The site may have had several periods of occupation and abandonment, sometimes with large numbers of inhabitants and other times with few or none. However, we don't have enough data to conclude this yet. It is likely that the settlement was occupied during early and later Inca times. Pottery samples collected includes pieces from early transitional through classic Inca to very late Vilcabamba style (after the arrival of the Spaniards). Unfortunately, samples collected for carbon 14 dating were contaminated and proved inconclusive. Nothing of Spanish or colonial origin was found.
It is reasonable to say that the site was certainly occupied by the last Incas and was a part of a network of unknown sites that we are just now piecing together with on going expeditions and research. It will be interesting to see what its relationship was to Choquequirao. As of this writing, The Expedition Council of the National Geographical Society has generously extended funds for additional field work at the site. Perhaps we will have more answers when this is completed.
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