Machu picchu how old is it

Based on those records, scholars have estimated that the site was built after CE , and perhaps as late as CE , depending on how long it took Pachacuti to subdue the region and construct the stone palace. The AMS technique can date bones and teeth that contain even small amounts of organic material, expanding the pool of remains suitable for scientific analysis.

The bones and teeth used in the analysis likely belonged to retainers, or attendants, assigned to the royal estate, the study shows. The remains show little evidence of involvement in heavy physical labor, such as construction, meaning that they likely were from the period when the site functioned as a country palace, not when it was being built, the researchers say.

On November 30, , Yale University and the Peruvian government reached an accord for the return to Peru of the archaeological materials Bingham excavated at Machu Picchu. All human remains and other archaeological materials from Machu Picchu have subsequently been returned to Cusco, the former capital city of the Inca Empire, where they are conserved at the Museo Machu Picchu.

Source: Yale University. Search for:. Trish Biers , an osteologist at Cambridge University who was not involved in the research, tells the Guardian that written sources, such as the ones produced by Spanish conquistadors, can help researchers understand the Spanish perspective on this tumultuous period in South American history.

Both scientific research and written texts provide crucial information for historians tasked with the difficult work of making sense of the past, Biers adds. For the study, Burger and his colleagues studied the remains of 26 Inca individuals who were interred under cliffs and in shallow caves and around Machu Picchu. The year prior, Bingham had stumbled onto the ruins of Machu Picchu after following a tip from a local muleteer, as Lily Rothman reported for Time magazine in But sources attest that local people living near the site knew about it for generations before his arrival.

In the mids, however, Peruvians staged protests and placed increased pressure on the Connecticut university to return the items to their country of origin.

But Bingham had made his mark. By bringing international attention to this important site, he certainly changed the history of Peru. Celebrated in Peru as the th birthday of Machu Picchu, the occasion also ignited controversy over the rightful possession of and guardianship over those ancient remains.

In , after years of pressure from Peruvian officials, Yale University agreed to return its Machu Picchu artifacts to Peru.

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