Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1984 - 63

(Above)An aerial view of the mesa-top
constructions. (Below) The expedition
team obtained horses and guides at this
small hacienda near the Rio Acero.

A pair of Inca walls made of well-worked
red sandstone stand atop a high mesa
overlooking the Rio Pilcomayo.
expedition members contributed invaluable assistance. In all parts of the world,
almost all ruins- almost all "lost" cities
-are well known to the people who dwell
nearby, and this held true for us. Through
these native Bolivians, we learned which
areas were likely to be productive.
The Peruvian and Bolivian Andes are
subject to heavy rains during the months
that people in the northern hemisphere
call winter, so we arrived in Bolivia in
June during the clear, dry weather. We
traveled by pick-up truck from Sucre in
central Bolivia over the high, dry valleyed plains past small farms and
villages, spending the nights in small
village inns.
Finding the walls
The first part of our expedition led us
along dusty roads over mountain passes
and into valleys that gradually dropped
from a relatively treeless zone of 10,000
feet or more to an increasingly green
landscape at an altitude of about 3,000
feet. In spite of landslides across the
narrow road, we arrived safely at Puento
Acero, a steel bridge that crosses the
Rio Acero at the base of the easternmost
ridge of the Andes before the rainforest
begins. It was on this ridge that we hoped
to find the ruins.
Our advance team was quite certain
that some sort of stone structures still
stood on the ridge well above the village.
Some villagers who knew of the ruins
called them manchachi , which in their
native Quechuan language- the Inca

tongue- means "a place of terror." The
people of the Andes consider such places
things to be feared, although the structures were built by their own ancestors.
In Peru, where such sites are known as
huacas , or holy places, they are similarly
feared and avoided. Visiting them is
believed to bring bad luck.
The way to the heights, on the far side
of the river, consisted of a faint trail that
cut back and forth as the slope became
steeper. At the base of the trail were two
small haciendas where we were able to
obtain horses and hire porters and
guides. After a wet camp, we clambered
with some difficulty up the sharply tilted
trail. The path was slippery with rain
and visibility was reduced to a couple of
hundred feet. Eventually we reached the
top of the ridge, 8,000 feet in altitude,
and were able to look down the sharp
slope. On one side of the steep slope
which we had scaled lay the rainforest,
hidden by the mist. Down the opposite
side - the "Inca" side - was a more
gradual slope.
At first, the top of the ridge appeared
to be nothing more than a natural stoney
outcropping interspersed with dry local
ichu grass. As we investigated further,
however, we came upon a wall of broken
stones- at first intermittent and then
continuous- that stood along the edge
of the drop. This wall would have acted
as a deterrent to attackers, who would
already have been fatigued by storming
up the steep slope. Obviously this wall
was more than a simple agricultural

dividing wall, as the nearby structures
demonstrated. A small bulge built out
from the middle of the wall provided a
perfect vantage over the slope below.
Just behind the wall was a small
rectangular room with a doorway and
the simple niches so characteristic of
Inca construction. Within were a couple
of round stone balls roughly the size of
grapefruits, suitable for throwing either
by hand or tied to rawhide as bolas.
Down the gentler slope on the Inca
side of the ridge lay suggestions of
terraces, which were littered with many
undecorated terracotta sherds. A considerable number of small trees and
bushes on a level spot hid several buildings, one containing eight interconnected
rooms. These structures could only be
garrison quarters. Nearby were two
smaller houses surrounded by a wall. All
the structures were wellbuilt of partially
dressed field stones. We were quite certain that this site was a part of the Inca
defense system against the rainforest
Indians, heretofore undescribed and
unknown except locally since the sixteenth century.
How much more of this wall is unknown is unclear, since it followsa remote
ridge that would not be visited regularly.
On a clear day, a small plane might be
able to pick out additional sections of
the wall as it winds up and down along
the ridges. It might also be possible to
pick out other forts hidden by the trees
and bushes which usually grow around
them. Even the presence of such growth
might suggest the presence of a building.
A mesa-top
fort
Our advance party had learned that
another Inca fort, part of the same defense system, stood in a neighboring
valley. It was known locally by the name
pukara , the Quechuan word for fort.
Located on the Rio Pilcomayo near its
junction with the Rio Ida, it was said to
be on a high inaccessible mesa.
The fort's importance lies not so much
in its inaccessibility as in a story attached to it. In 1574,Francisco de Toledo,
Viceroy of Peru (which then included
Bolivia), was said to have been attacked
by the same rainforest Indians who had
earlier attacked the Inca. The undefeated
Spanish, so the story goes, drove the
Indians back down the Pilcomayo River
valley from which they had come. Some
of the Indians were driven up onto an
isolated mesa, where they ensconced
themselves in one of the same forts which
had originally been built against them.
The Spanish thought they had them
trapped there without food or water, and
settled down for a siege. But the Indians
failed to surrender and instead hurled
food and insults at the Spanish. Their
defiance, coupled with guerilla attacks,
eventually handed the Spanish their first
defeat in the New World.
continued on page 76
1984
July/August

63
Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1984

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