Dennis Ogburn discusses Peru’s ancient ‘band of holes’ mystery with CNN
Dennis Ogburn, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, was featured in CNN’s article, “Archaeologists think they’ve solved Peru’s ‘band of holes’ mystery.”
Ogburn specializes in the archaeology of the New World, with his primary research concentrated in Andean South America where he has conducted field work in Ecuador and Peru.
He focuses on the processes of expansion and maintenance of the Inca Empire and other conquest states, combining advanced scientific techniques like geochemical sourcing and GIS with ethnohistorical analysis.
The mystery of Monte Sierpe
Monte Sierpe, or “serpent mountain,” is home to a series of about 5,200 holes stretching nearly a mile across the Pisco Valley of the southern Peruvian Andes. The holes have baffled researchers for nearly a century, but drones are helping archaeologists understand why they were constructed.
According to a recent study published in Antiquity, researchers have analyzed new drone footage and pollen grains found within the holes, suggesting that the site may have first served as a pre-Inca civilization marketplace, and later used for an Incan method of accounting.
“Monte Sierpe is a site that has truly been a mystery in Andean archaeology, and I am excited to see this research being done,” Ogburn said.
Monte Sierpe’s segmented organization mirrors an Inca counting system involving knotted strings called a khipu, particularly one example recovered from the Pisco Valley featuring 80 groups of cords.
Although Ogburn did not participate in the new study, he said the analysis of pollen helps rule out many of the other hypothesized site uses. However, as the marketplace and accounting systems would have operated in two very different ways, and the connection between the holes and Inca khipus is tenuous, he said that further research is needed.
Read the full article via CNN.
Additional coverage by Yahoo!News, CTV News, AccuWeather, WFFT and WXOW.
Featured image courtesy of Dennis Ogburn.