• The pre-Inca Chincha Kingdom (circa 1000-1400 CE), along Peru’s southern coast, was one of the most wealthy and influential of its time before falling to the Inca and Spanish empires. • Scientists have long puzzled over the foundation for that prosperity, and it seems one critical factor was bird poop, according to anew paperpublished in the journal PLoS ONE. • “Seabird guano may seem trivial, yet our study suggests this potent resource could have significantly contributed to sociopolitical and economic change in the Peruvian Andes,“said co-author Jacob Bongers, a digital archaeologist at the University of Sydney. • “Guano dramatically boosted the production of maize (corn), and this agricultural surplus crucially helped fuel theChinchaKingdom’s economy, driving their trade, wealth, population growth and regional influence, and shaped their strategic alliance with the Inca Empire. • In ancient Andean cultures, fertiliser was power.” Last November, Bongers co-authoreda paperdetailingevidence supportingthe hypothesis that the mysterious “Band of Holes” on Mount Sierpe in the Andes might have been an ancient marketplace. • Aerial photographs from the 1930s first revealed that long row of around 5,200 precisely aligned holes, seemingly organized into blocked sections, most likely constructed by the Chincha Kingdom.
Article Summaries:
- Scientists have linked the prosperity of Peru’s pre‑Inca Chincha Kingdom (c. 1000‑1400 CE) to seabird guano, according to a new study in PLoS ONE. The research shows that guano fertilised maize crops, creating an agricultural surplus that underpinned the kingdom’s wealth, population growth, trade networks and alliance with the Inca Empire. The paper also builds on earlier work by the same team, which used microbotanical analysis and high‑resolution drone imagery to identify a “Band of Holes” on Mount Sierpe as a pre‑Inca marketplace where local goods were exchanged with mobile traders.
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