The Origins of Machu Picchu...

Machu Picchu is one of the best-known ancient sites anywhere on earth. It's an astonishingly beautiful place, an incredibly well-preserved ancient city perched high above the sacred valley of Peru. It was spared destruction by the Spanish conquistadors that were pillaging the Inca in the 16th century, as although they passed through the valleys below, they never found the city high in the clouds above. Abandoned by the Inca and with the jungle slowly reclaiming the site over a couple of centuries, Machu Picchu was eventually rediscovered and brought back to the world's attention in the early 1900s. Today it's a bustling tourist attraction with thousands of people flowing through its stone passages and staircases every single day, almost all of whom are told that Machu Picchu was created as a hidden Inca enclave, that it was built by them as a defensible retreat for their royalty and elite. Now the Inca undoubtedly lived here at some point, but were they really responsible for everything that we can see on this remarkable site? A close examination of both the site's architecture and of the story of its past suggests that its megalithic roots may well stretch back much further in time than orthodox archaeologists believe. My name is Ben, you're watching Uncharted X and this is my investigation into the origins of one of my favourite sites in Peru, Machu Picchu. In this video we're going to take a closer look at some of the features of Machu Picchu and then dive into the history of this site and the story of how it was rediscovered by the adventurers and archaeologists of the early 20th century. Located on top of some very steep mountains in southern Peru, Machu Picchu looks down on some spectacular valleys and the roaring Urumbamba River. It sits at a height of around 7,970 feet or 2,430 metres in altitude. This actually makes it one of the lower elevation sites when it comes to the Sacred Valley region, and it's a misconception that I often hear, that Machu Picchu is at some very high elevation. The reality is, Machu Picchu is considerably lower in elevation than most of the other well-known ancient sites in Peru. Part of the charm of this place comes from the fact that it was built in the more tropical jungle ecosystem that really can't exist in the higher areas of the Andes mountain range. The ancient and megalithic city of Cusco itself is around 11,200 feet in elevation, or roughly 3,400 metres, far above Machu Picchu, and many of the other popular sites in this region are at even higher elevations, past 12,000 and 13,000 feet. So if you're visiting this region sometime and you're struggling with the altitude, you might actually find the scenic train ride and a day at Machu Picchu under 10,000 feet to be a welcome relief from the mild altitude sickness that so many people tend to experience after they land in Cusco. It's really easy to understand why Machu Picchu is such a well-known ancient site, I mean just take a look at it. They should put an image of this place next to the word picturesque in the dictionary. Machu Picchu's fame and beauty also mean that it's on damn near every tourist's must-see list, and the reality of this will not be lost on you should you also choose to visit the site someday. I do have to say that selfie sticks are a plague, people. Stop that. Today it's the busiest tourist attraction in Peru, with around a million people churning through it every year. It really is understandable why they come though, and although you'll need to brave these hordes in order to see it for yourself, it's absolutely worth doing at least once. I've made the trip out to Machu Picchu a couple of times, and I definitely plan to visit the site again in the future. With enough planning and forethought, it's possible to manage the day such that you avoid the worst of the congestion, and there are several quiet spots along the various trails and passages where you can really soak in the experience without being jostled by other people. From an architectural perspective, Machu Picchu displays some truly remarkable megalithic granite construction, particularly in its core, and this is work that rivals some of the best that you'll see anywhere else in Peru. Precisely fitted together and featuring some very large blocks, the megalithic core of this site is surrounded by buildings of what you could only describe as a much rougher form of masonry style. Around the small city itself, you will also see the iconic Inca terracing system, and this is something that's pervasive throughout the Sacred Valley. It's been used to terraform many of the steep slopes of the area. Machu Picchu was first brought to the world's attention by American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911. He was led to the site by locals who knew about it and were living nearby. At the time, Bingham was searching for lost Inca cities, and I think this is an objective he most certainly met with this particular expedition. Although Hiram Bingham's name is now forever attached to Machu Picchu, we should acknowledge that he certainly wasn't the first person in recent centuries to find it. There were actually local Peruvian farmers living on the site, and several others living close by to it. Bingham wasn't even the first explorer who was looking for ancient ruins to run across Machu Picchu. One of his photos shows an inscription on a block that was supposedly left by Peruvian explorer Augustin Lizarraga in 1902, which is nearly 10 years prior to Bingham's discovery. Preceding both of these early explorers, there are reports from other missionaries and other explorers from the previous century who claim to have seen the site. And interestingly, there is some proof of this. You can find Machu Picchu, along with the nearby peak of Juana Picchu, actually shown on a German map that dates back to 1874. So although we cannot truly say that Hiram Bingham discovered Machu Picchu, he should be credited with the first scientific exploration and the significant documentation of the site. His efforts and those of his team that were spent over months of hard labouring in order to clear and then photograph the site, as well as the effort he spent excavating it looking for artefacts, this is what really first propelled Machu Picchu towards becoming the globally famous location that it is now. It was the work of Hiram Bingham that cleared the way for further efforts in the future to both continue to uncover and then restore Machu Picchu. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, Bingham was also quite aware that he wasn't the first visitor to the site. And this is a short quote from Bingham's book, The Wonderland of Peru, and in this he notes, Quote, I could not help being reminded of the fact that we had spent two days of one workman's time in erasing from the beautiful granite walls the crude charcoal autographs of visiting Peruvians. One of whom had taken the pains to scrawl in huge letters his name in 33 places in the principal and most attractive buildings. End quote. I think it's human nature to write our names on things and to claim them at some point, and I think this is a point that I may have made in a few of my Egyptian videos. Here is a brief clip from an excellent guide who was working with us on a trip to Peru in 2013, his name is Rogelio, and he's describing Bingham's quest to find the lost ruins of the Inca. So according to the history, so Hiram Bingham, who was a professor in the Yale University, who was really passionate about the Libertador Simon Bolivar, who made a liberty about so many countries like Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela places. He was really passionate about this, but when he came to Peru, he just found another beautiful and really interesting histories about the Incas, the oldest culture here. So that's why he was really passionate. So he took the Incas like our first focus in this place. Yeah. In that time, imagine there were places like Vilcabamba, the last refuge of the Incas, which one it was still undiscovered. And this Machu Picchu, this place, nobody knows about this place until this time. So first of all, Hiram Bingham started from Cusco, taking the sacred valley of the Incas. He was looking for Vilcabamba. He focused in that place. So where is Vilcabamba? Take him from here, train, and after this bus, take at least eight hours to get Vilcabamba. And Vilcabamba, by the way, it was the last refuge of the Incas. Where after the war between Incas and Spanish start, most of the Incas just run away until this place. And they create Vilcabamba as a last refuge or last capital of the Incas. So in that time, he was looking for Vilcabamba again. So nobody knows about Machu Picchu until this time. So when Hiram Bingham took the valley or the valley sides, just walking around and try to explore, where is the town Aguas Calientes down there? He found at least seven or ten families already living there. So most of these families were only farmer people. Now it's a city, a little town there. So a long time ago, 1911, it was total countryside still. So when he arrived to these areas, so he started to ask for the locals, where is the Inca side around this mountain? And the locals answer him, Ajay Machu Picchu. What has been that? Up there in this old mountain. Actually these locals pointing the mountain that you can see in the top side up there. So it's the name, the original name of this mountain that already this Inca side or this archaeological site has, Machu Picchu. According to his book, he took like nine hours from the bottom of the valley to access finally this place. Why? Because in that time there was no bridge. They had to make their own bridge and after this, carry the vegetation just to make their paths. Why? Because you can see the narrow lines up there, which one it was the big connection to get Cusco. Now there is a nice Inca trial made for four days roughly, but that started from my hometown only. Long time ago in the Incas time, all the trials start from Cusco, which one it was the capital of the Incas, Cusco. So that's actually the big connection of that. When he arrived here after nine, eight hours, so all this area where we are now with a lot of terraces, it was already cleaned up. Why? Because he found in the first time already three families living in this place. So these families, according to the history, according to what he said in his book, Hiram Bingham, he said that these people were no locals from here. They just ran away because in the years 80s or in 80s centuries, we have a big war between Peru and Chile. That's why many people just ran away because they don't like to fight. So probably these three families just arrived here and they decided to live here. And these people using these terraces as a farming places, yeah, where they grow here coffee, they grow passion fruit, also coca leaves as well, and also sweet potatoes in all these areas. So where is these buildings with a touch roof already rebuilt? The unique thing, the unique original thing there is the walls, but the roofs are the same copy that the Incas made a long time ago. Actually all this city was total covered by this touch roof in that time, yeah. So all these three families used to live in these buildings and they just farming here. But look at what is the important place, what is this nice urban sector also. So all these buildings over there, until that time it was still covered by vegetation. Some of you might have recognized Brian Forrester in that clip and we'll hear a little more from Brian later on in this video. Before we get into Hiram Bingham's account of the astonishing things that he found here, it's worth setting up just a little bit of context, as throughout this video we'll be seeing imagery of the architecture that's here in Machu Picchu from both a century ago as well as video from modern times. As we go through this I want you to notice the different styles of architecture that you can see, as this is a key point in the mystery of South American history. I'm going to reference Jesus Gamara's system for identifying the three styles of architecture one can find in Peru. Jesus is an author and a researcher whom I've had the pleasure of meeting a couple of times. If you don't know what this system is, I'd highly recommend watching one of my videos called Why the Megalithic Architecture of Peru is Older than the Inca, as it gives a lot of background to the history of this region and it goes into these three architectural styles in significant detail. A link to that video is in the description box below. As a brief summary, these three styles begin with something called Hanan Pacha, which is the oldest style. It's categorized by the monolithic nature of the work, it's the shapes and carvings that are made into the living rock of the mountainside itself. This is generally found on the bottom layers of architecture and it visually appears to be the oldest form of work. Quite often you'll see it surrounded by or built upon with the later styles, as somehow as if it was revered or respected and the later builders were trying to protect this work. This older style is then often followed by something called Urun Pacha, which is really the classic megalithic style. This is the cellular polygonal masonry generally made up of very large and very precisely fitted stones, like those at Sacsayhuaman or in the streets of Cusco or as you'll see here at Machu Picchu. This work is usually of a uniform stone type and that stone type has quite often been transported significant distances to the site. In many places Urun Pacha tends to be on top of or surrounding that monolithic older Hanun Pacha work. The last style is known as Ukun Pacha or what you would call the Incan style, the Inca style. This is the loose rock walls, the rough masonry work, the typically not very precise but functional buildings that you'll see patched together, sometimes used with mud mortar and those types of things. The majority of the buildings at Machu Picchu are Ukun Pacha. I think the majority of the work here was done by the Inca but not the megalithic core and interestingly enough I think most of these Ukun Pacha buildings were covered over with mud mortar. In today's times there's not much of this mud mortar remaining but as you can see from this photo Hiram Bingham found that some of these walls still had their mud mortar coverings. I think most of this has fallen away now due to erosion and rain and moisture. You'll often find all three of these styles on Peruvian sites and in fact you see all three of these styles here at Machu Picchu. In general the rough Inca work is found on top of the other styles. It's quite obviously of a vastly less technologically demanding nature. To me it seems clear that the relatively primitive Inca used this style to repair and to rebuild the older megalithic work. So now we'll return back to our story with Hiram Bingham but I wanted to provide that little bit of context to just keep in mind as we look at this imagery. The tale of Bingham's journey and his discovery of Machu Picchu is written in quite an entertaining fashion in his book titled In the Wonderland of Peru. This was first published in 1913 and his story is one of what I can only call real adventure of a type that's pretty much unavailable to people in today's times. He talks of harrowing river crossings, treacherous mountain climbs and narrow escapes from both injury and death. Here is how Bingham described the day that he first discovered Machu Picchu. Quote, leaving camp soon after breakfast I joined the guide and accompanied by a soldier that had been kindly loaned me by the Peruvian government, plunged through the jungle to the riverbank and came to a shaky little bridge made of four tree trunks bound together with vines and stretched across a stream only a few inches above the roaring rapids. On the other side we had a hard climb first through the jungle and later up a very stiff almost precipitous slope. About noon we reached a little grass hut where a good-natured Indian family who had been living here for three or four years gave us welcome and set before us gourds full of cool delicious water and a few cold boiled sweet potatoes. Apart from another hut in the vicinity and a few stone-faced terraces there seemed to be little in the way of ruins and I began to think that my time had been wasted. However the view was magnificent, the water was delicious and the shade of the hut most agreeable. So we rested a while and then went on to the top of the ridge. On all sides of us rose the magnificent peaks of the Urumbamba canyon while two thousand feet below us the rushing waters of the noisy river making a great turn defended three sides of the ridge on top of which we were hunting for ruins. On the west side of the ridge the three Indian families who had chosen this eagle's nest for their home had built a little path part of which consisted of crude ladders of vines and tree trunks tied to the face of the precipice. Presently we found ourselves in the midst of a tropical forest beneath the shade of whose trees we could make out a maze of ancient walls. The ruins of buildings made of blocks of granite some of which were beautifully fitted together in the most refined style of Inca architecture. A few rods farther along we came to a little open space on which were two splendid temples or palaces. The superior character of the stonework, the presence of these splendid edifices and of what appeared to be an unusually large number of finely constructed stone dwellings led me to believe that Machu Picchu might prove to be the largest and most important ruin discovered in South America since the days of the Spanish conquest." End quote. So as soon as he saw the megalithic construction of Machu Picchu, Bingham immediately thought that he was really onto something here and how right he was. He left two of his men there to map out their discovery as best they could over a period of some three weeks and Bingham vowed to return with a larger expedition and more supplies for an extended stay. In our modern times there is a well-cut if somewhat narrow road that leads up the more than 2 000 vertical feet from the town of Aguas Calientas that sits in the valley down at the river up to the site at the top of the mountain. This is the road by which dozens of busloads of tourists ascend to Machu Picchu each day in relative ease. The only price being really some white knuckles as the apparently fearless drivers race up the switchbacks with their steep drop-offs over the edge. In Bingham's time however there were no such conveniences. He and his crew had to quite literally cut their way through the jungle and carve steps and switchbacks into the steep slopes such that their human porters could transport their supplies up to the site. This trail was far too rough and steep for mules and initially it was too rough even for the porters and it took them several days to cut in a trail for them. Here Bingham describes some of the fun that he had trying to create this route up the hill. Quote, there were many places which were almost vertical in which we had to cut steps. Up these places we now made zigzags so that there was comparatively little difficulty in climbing. On the first day I had set fire to the cane in order to clear the trail. This fire did not clear much however. On the second day I was about a quarter of a mile behind the workmen or rather above them when suddenly Tomas the Peruvian soldier mentioned above who was with me said look they have fired the cane. Sure enough they had started it and in a minute it had gained headway and was roaring up towards us the flames reaching 15 or 20 feet into the air. There was nothing for us but to run and we did that tearing through the jungle downhill in an effort to get around the side of the fire. Suddenly on one of my jumps I didn't stop when I expected to but kept right on through the air. The brush had masked a nice little eight foot jump off and I got beautifully bumped. In a minute there came a thump and Tomas landed beside me. It amused me so much to watch him that I forgot all about my own jolted bones. There was nothing broken however and we made our way without much more trouble around the fire and fell upon the peons who were gathered in a bunch speculating as to where we might be." End quote. Along with cutting in the trail to Machu Picchu Bingham also had to rebuild the bridge that was crossing the Urumbamba river as the bridge he'd used in the previous year had been destroyed in the seasonal flooding. He dedicates a couple of pages in his book to the difficult task of rebuilding this bridge such that his porters who had to carry things like 60 pound boxes of food could cross the river. In fact at other rivers and other crossings on his expedition he had to use barges and actually swim his mules across the river. I want to mention these river crossings for a specific reason and that is to reinforce the just immense difficulty in moving heavy loads across terrain the likes of which you find in the Andes mountain range. It's one of the reasons why I find these megalithic works in many of these places to be just so utterly astonishing. The stones that make up part of the core masonry on these sites has been transported several kilometers or more and we know in a lot of cases where their quarries are and it's across very difficult terrain that these stones have been moved in order to put them into the places that we find them today. Alante Tambo is perhaps the best example of this. These huge granite blocks that make up the megalithic core of the site they're found today on the top of what is a very steep mountain and they weigh around 50 tons some of them up to 80 tons each. The quarry for these stones lies far up on the high slopes of a neighboring mountain and you can see Graham Hancock pointing to the quarry for these stones in this image. These blocks had to first be quarried out of the ground then moved down what is a really steep hill transported across a rapid and very dangerous river and then lifted up another very steep mountain to the top and installed in place. It's quite an achievement. There's even a huge stone from this granite quarry that's been left on the road down from Alante Tambo or rather a better way of saying it is is that the road was actually built around this stone because we certainly weren't moving it for a road. So you can contrast this to the fact that only a hundred years ago in Hiram Bingham's time we found it quite difficult to cross the very same rivers with 60 pound loads on our backs. It certainly adds a little perspective to this when you see this type of work in the Andes mountain range at least for me. So once he had his camp established at Machu Picchu, Bingham first had to clear back centuries of growth from the structures which as you can see from these images wasn't the easiest task. Quote, although the buildings are extremely well built there is no cement or mortar in the masonry and there is no means of preventing the roots of forest trees from penetrating the walls and eventually tearing them all down. In several cases we found gigantic trees perched on the very tips of the gabled ends of these small and beautifully constructed houses. It was not the least difficult part of our work to cut down and get such trees out of the way without seriously damaging the house walls. End quote. After this clearing effort he excavated several areas of Machu Picchu and he also searched for human burials in nearby caves. After some four months of effort Bingham had found what was ultimately several skeletons and about 200 small pieces of bronze as well as several jars and a whole bunch of pot shards. In terms of architecture what Bingham found after this clearing effort was really truly astonishing. He had revealed several megalithic masterpieces underneath these centuries of jungle growth. He was pretty clearly very impressed with both the location of the site and the quality of megalithic masonry. Here is how he summarized his initial impression of Machu Picchu after these months spent clearing the site. Quote, an ideal place of refuge. Although it is too early to speak definitely in regard to the civilization of Machu Picchu, a short description of the principal characteristics of the city may not be out of place. Machu Picchu is essentially a city of refuge. It is perched on a mountaintop in the most inaccessible corner of the most inaccessible section of the Urumbamba river. So far as I know there is no part of the Andes that has been better defended by nature. A stupendous canyon where the principal rock is granite and where the precipices are frequently over a thousand feet sheer presents difficulties of attack and facilities for defense second to none. Here on a narrow ridge flanked on all sides by precipitous or nearly precipitous slopes, a highly civilized people, artistic, inventive and capable of sustained endeavor, at some time in the remote past built themselves a city of refuge. Since they had no iron or steel tools, only stone hammers, its construction must have cost many generations if not centuries of effort. End quote. Bingham's impression of how long it might have taken to build Machu Picchu is an important thing to keep in mind, particularly as we're now turning to an investigation of how we date and relate Machu Picchu in our modern times. If you do visit here, chances are that the guide will tell you that the Inca built all of it. Doing a basic internet search for the origins of Machu Picchu, you'll also see it confidently asserted that the Inca were responsible for all of these megalithic remains. The truth however is far less certain and I'd say that although we definitely do know that the Inca lived here and that they worked on the site, we don't really know its true origins and we don't know who built the megalithic core of Machu Picchu and in fact there is some strong evidence that suggests that parts of this site could be far older than the Inca civilization itself. Almost all the records of what the Inca said or what they had possibly recorded in terms of artwork and pictographs, all of that has been lost as a result of the conquest by the Spanish. Any clues, accounts, artwork or depictions of the history fell victim to the wanton and zealous destruction that was carried out by the conquistadors. This destruction was applied vigorously to anything that was contrary to the Christian culture and the religion that they brought with them to South America. The dominant religion today in South America is overwhelmingly Christian and particularly Roman Catholic and this is more or less as a direct result of this so-called conquest and we really have very little clues as to the actual history of the region before this time. However rather than acknowledging this lack of data and this historical mystery, in general mainstream historical opinion attributes all of the ancient and megalithic sites in the high Andes to the Inca. From what little we know, this civilization began somewhere in the 1200s. It only really got started in the 1400s with the first real ruler of the empire and then it was abruptly ended only around 150 years later with the destruction of the last Inca stronghold by the Spanish in 1572. These dates and the short time frame of the Inca is important to remember when you look at all of these sites in Peru. At its peak the Inca civilization only lasted around 150 years and it's during these times that they are thought to have built all of the great sites that we can see including Machu Picchu. The Inca were, by most accounts at least, a relatively primitive agricultural society. They had a low technological capability. They had no access to iron or steel tools and they lived without a practical knowledge of the wheel and indeed they're thought to have lived without even a known form of writing. Yet for all their primitive capabilities and the short duration of the civilization, many of these so-called Inca sites including Machu Picchu show some utterly remarkable architectural features. The vast majority of the tour guides here will tell you that all of the architecture is Inca work, that there is no difference in technological levels shown in this work and that it was all created by the same people at the same time. The same goes for Wikipedia and other mainstream sources. They will also assert that the Inca created these sites. In the case of Machu Picchu, Wikipedia unambiguously reports that quote Machu Picchu was built starting 1450 to 1460 end quote. Most orthodox sources state that it was built as a refuge for Pachacuti. It's also thought that the site was abandoned by the Inca and well before the Spanish ever arrived. What are they referencing with this claim? Well let's follow the trail. The reference points to an archaeological textbook called Machu Picchu unveiling the mystery of the Incas. This book is available online so let's see what it says. Edited by Richard L Berger professor of anthropology at Yale and Lucy C Salazar who works or at least did work in his department in 2004 when this book was published. The authors use softer language than Wikipedia but they still assert that quote the area had only been lightly settled before the Inca conquest and it seems reasonable to suggest that Machu Picchu built sometime between 1450 and 1470 had been in use for only some 80 years when Tehuantinsuyu crumbled and the site was abandoned end quote. So according to the authors Machu Picchu was built used and then abandoned in all around 80 years. Remember that Bingham thought it might have taken many generations or perhaps even centuries to build this site. I think this only highlights the fact that when it comes to the ancient history of South America we really don't have much to go on and perhaps we'd be better off admitting that there's some real mystery here instead of making assertions based on very little evidence. Still this is really only an assertion. Remember that with Egypt with Rome and Greece and many of the other ancient civilizations we have written records from historians and chroniclers who lived during those times and that helps us to date events and locations. We also have the fact that many of these civilizations mixed with each other the Greeks and the and the Egyptians mixed the Greeks and the Romans mixed so it's possible to cross-check and to verify dates when you have multiple sources. Now none of this exists when it comes to South America. We don't have the records of contemporary historians to go on and we certainly don't have any accounts of mixing with other civilizations at least anyone before the Spanish. So what is behind this assertion and this dating for Machu Picchu? Well the assertion of this site's construction date is really only based on one thing the style of the ceramic pottery that was discovered here by Hiram Bingham. Quoting further from the same textbook quote, Rowe's hypothesis that Machu Picchu was founded by Pachacuti is consistent with our preliminary ceramic analysis indicating the absence of kilki, lucre and the other ceramic pottery styles immediately antecedent to the imperial Cusco style of Inca pottery end quote. I want to be clear here all this passage indicates is that the Inca did in fact live here likely beginning in the period around 1450 to 1470 as the pottery matches that found on other Inca sites from that period or rather they didn't find any pottery that comes from the period before these dates. Now I'm not disputing any of that I'm quite sure it's correct and that the Inca were in fact on this site in those times. However this analysis says nothing about the architecture of the site nor the age of the original construction. Today the conclusion that the Inca built everything is confidently stated as established fact both for Machu Picchu and all of the other megalithic sites in Peru. I think that the real answer to this question today should be we just don't know for sure but as long as we're speculating is it not also just as possible that instead of building the megalithic core of Machu Picchu the Inca found it they worked on it and they repaired it with their primitive architectural style of stacking loose rocks. I have not seen anything that rules this possibility out. However what about the Inca themselves? What did they say? Even with the lack of historical records and the destruction that was wrought by the Spanish there must be some indication of their history and it turns out that there is. While I was researching this video I came across a passage in Hiram Bingham's book that quite literally left me sitting stunned in my chair for a few seconds. Quoting again from Bingham's book The Wonderland of Peru and here he is writing about the origins of the Inca. Quote, an ancient Inca tradition. A story told to some of the early Spanish chroniclers in regard to that distant historical event runs somewhat as follows. Thousands of years ago there lived in the highlands of Peru a megalithic folk who developed a remarkable civilization and who left as architectural records such cyclopean structures as the fortresses of Sacsayhuaman and Alantaytambo. These people were attacked by barbarian hordes coming from the south possibly from the Argentine pampas. They were defeated and fled into one of the most inaccessible Andean canyons. Here in a region strongly defended by nature they established themselves. Here their descendants lived for several centuries. The chief place was called Tampu Toco eventually regaining their military strength and becoming crowded in this mountainous valley. They left Tampu Toco and under the leadership of three brothers went out of three windows or caves and started for Cusco. The migration was slow and deliberate. They eventually reached Cusco and there they established the Inca kingdom which throughout several centuries spread by conquest over the entire plateau and even as far south as Chile and as far north as Ecuador. This Inca empire had reached its height when the Spaniards came. The Spaniards were told that Tampu Toco was at a place called Pacaritampu, a small village a day's journey southwest of Cusco and in the Apurimac valley. The chroniclers duly noted this location and it has been taken for granted ever since that Tampu end quote. And I'm sure I just assassinated some of the pronunciation of those words so please forgive me. Now there is a lot to unpack in this quote but let's first start with the timeline which seems much longer than that suggested by our orthodox experts today. First we have quote thousands of years ago there lived in the highlands of Peru a megalithic folk who developed a remarkable civilization end quote. This is already going back further than what we think of in terms of the civilizations of South America of which the Inca were one and only several hundred years ago from today. After this time the story talks of centuries of time where they supposedly retreated into the highlands and then centuries more as their descendants slowly migrated toward Cusco they eventually rose to become the Inca civilization as we know it sometimes presumably in the 15th century. Note that this story deliberately attributes the mighty megalithic work of places like Sacsayhuaman and Alantaytambo not to the Inca but to this remarkable megalithic civilization. Finding this story one that stretches the history of the region back millennia in an account that is now more than a hundred years old I think is quite remarkable and this is because it really wasn't considered to be possible in terms of human civilizations by the explorers or archaeologists of the time. Although this account is essentially hearsay Bingham didn't have anything to gain by misreporting or by making this up and he didn't seem to believe this origin story any more literally than our modern archaeologists do. Not through any fault of his own he just wasn't working with the same set of evidence that today makes this tale just so much more plausible. Whether it was Bingham in Peru or Flinders Petrie in Egypt at the turn of the 20th century they simply didn't have the data or the context to frame this idea of vastly ancient and high technology civilizations as being even remotely possible. It's only in our modern era in the last couple of decades that we have gained both the perspective and the scientific understanding of our history that this becomes a plausible interpretation of that history. In Bingham's day there was no understanding of the true age of the human species which we now know stretches back at least 300,000 years and possibly longer. There was no concept of the complexity of our genetic past with recent DNA studies indicating widespread contact between peoples as well as migratory travel across oceans at some point deep in antiquity. Other than the biblical cataclysm which many of the early scientists tried to distance themselves from back at the turn of the 20th century they certainly didn't know about the Younger Dryas period the cataclysmic events of some only 12,800 years ago that literally changed the surface of the earth and killed off the northern hemisphere megafauna. This also caused a massive disruption to human populations as shown by a modern analysis of male DNA. It's this same set of modern evidence that many of our mainstream archaeologists are pretty much just ignoring or dismissing as irrelevant and they do this mostly because it comes from an adjacent field of science. However I think the reckoning on this is coming and soon they will simply not be able to just continue to ignore or dismiss all of these new discoveries as the evidence for the Younger Dryas in particular is becoming what I would now start to call overwhelming. Even skeptics like Michael Shermer are beginning to change their tune and several high-profile archaeological scholars are starting to come around to the idea that perhaps history as we know it is but the latest chapter of a much longer story. In the context of these modern discoveries this account of the Inca's own history which was passed through oral tales that eventually made it to Hiram Bingham's ears and then he wrote down into his book I think this deserves much more recognition and more investigation. Whether our mainstream archaeologists like it or not the Younger Dryas and the scientific work going into the origins of our species does have a significant impact on their precious story of history. A story which as any open-minded researcher would know has always had its issues. Issues like trying to credit all forms of ancient architecture in Peru to the Inca despite the obvious disparities in styles and this is something that is blindingly obvious to anyone that just stops for a minute and thinks about what they're looking at. In fact Bingham acknowledged that these were obviously different forms of architecture as shown by this image of Rumicola which reads quote a nearer view of Rumicola shows the junction of two entirely different kinds of stonework. The original wall is of rough stones laid in mud but the gateway is lined with cut stones fitted together without mortar after the best Inca style. It may be possible that a later race cut a gate through the ancient aqueduct and lined it in their own fashion with their best stonework end quote. Personally I think it's much more likely that this megalithic construction was done in the very distant past as suggested by the Inca origin story. I think that most of it was destroyed in some form of cataclysm perhaps even the Younger but there are certainly other contenders that happened on other dates. I think that the Inca rebuilt what they could they repaired what they could and they reused the megalithic stone in their own constructions when they couldn't find the original locations for these stones. Often you'll see megalithic stones used as lintels in doorways or inserted just here and there into those rough stone walls that the Inca clearly made. Here's author and researcher Brian Forrester explaining how this process might have worked. Well this is this is a prime example of that that's recycling by the Inca. The Inca used exclusively andesite because this whole area is andesite because their you know the Inca's role was to build buildings out of what was available so they recycled some of the damaged structures from the early megalithic builders. What's intriguing about the Inca is that they appear to have been incredibly respectful of whoever it was that first built Cusco. They would they seemingly would never touch any of the of the surfaces and remove something but if something was on the ground it's like well we don't know where that goes so let's use it to build something around it or to enhance what's already been here. Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, Sacsayhuaman being very classic examples of that but the megalithic builders would go as far as was required which is a similar thing we find in Egypt. They had to have stone that either had a high quartz crystal content or iron content so the basalt which is what this is possibly comes from a one quarry 50 kilometers in that direction and then there's the limestone which Sacsayhuaman which is right here and its quarry is about 10 to 15 kilometers in that direction and there are other quarries too of great distance and the important thing for the megalithic builders was any structure could only be constructed out of stone from one quarry. They never mixed the stone it all had to be the same quality because of the characteristics that they were after which is almost science fiction. So what can we conclude from all this? To me the architecture of Machu Picchu seems to tell a similar story to that of many other of the ancient ruins in the Peruvian Andes. I think it's certainly possible if not even likely that parts of this site are vastly older than the Inca civilization. A civilization whom undoubtedly lived here and worked on the site and left indications of their presence via the remains of ceramics and ritual burial. This interpretation seems consistent with what the Inca themselves said about their own origins with talk of a megalithic civilization existing thousands of years ago one that was mostly destroyed and whose descendants many centuries later eventually arose and spread to become the Inca. It's consistent with much of the new data coming from adjacent scientific fields like paleoclimatology geology and genetics. I think that given all of the supporting evidence circumstantial though much of it may be this interpretation of the origins of Machu Picchu is worthy of much more mainstream discussion. All right well I hope you enjoyed that look into the origins of Machu Picchu. If you did please remember to give the video a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you haven't done that already. It definitely helps me in the never-ending fight against the YouTube algorithms and it looks like some people may have been unsubscribed from the channel recently so do please check that subscription status. There will be a part two to this video that's coming very soon. It is actually mostly all edited and put together. I moved it into another video lest this one be like an hour and a half long but there's I want to take a detailed look at some of the areas in Machu Picchu. There's a lot of really interesting architecture and some details there that we didn't cover in this video. There's some alignment stuff related to the hitching post of the sun and a few other things so that that video is going to come out I promise within the next few days. I know I'm not winning any prizes for my pronunciation of various words that come from various different language backgrounds but stay tuned for a little bonus video at the end of this that explains why I think it is important to try and get Machu Picchu pronounced correctly and as always I do want to say just a huge thank you to everybody that does support the channel via the value for value model. I try to run the channel on that basis sort of if you get any value from what I'm doing returning some of that value to me is the only real way that I have to I guess run the channel and keep doing the things that I'm doing. I much prefer that type of a model than going down the route of doing sponsored videos or working directly with advertisers so I'm resisting that as as best I can so a huge thanks to everybody that does get behind what I'm trying to do here with Uncharted X and if you like what I'm doing and you're interested in supporting the channel there's lots of ways to do that Patreon, PayPal, Subscribestar, other methods just subscribing to the channel frankly that helps. A lot of those methods are outlined on my website it's unchartedx.com support so until then I'll see you guys in the next video. Cheers! The original name of how the locals call this place is Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is actually not the original name was just named with the first people who the first American men who came here named Hiram Bingham who discovered this place. Sometimes you can say or you can spell like this Machu Picchu which is no good. The Andean culture so Machu means old or ancient and Picchu is penis so you have to say really well Picchu yeah Machu Picchu is the original name yeah name it.