Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Richard Nisbet

I first came to Peru in 1975. I was brought here by a mystery. How could people who were supposedly primitive, Bronze-age people…. have made walls that look like this?
 
Later I read Thor Heyerdahl’s books on Easter Island and discovered that there was one remaining wall (and evidence of others that had fallen into the ocean) like those in and around Cusco.   And there were other commonalities between Easter Island and the Andean highlands. They both had the totora reed, the bottle gourd and the sweet potato.

HOW COULD THEY HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON?

Look at this map. Easter Island is the white dot in the center.

Why on Earth should there be a connection between two places so far apart, especially when one of them is an infinitesimal spec of land in the Pacific? The cultural and agricultural similarities exist. There can be no doubt about that. But who brought the plants and stone working techniques to whom? Common sense would dictate that the influences were brought from Easter Island to the mainland. The continent of South America is a lot easier to find by sailing east than is Easter Island by sailing west.   


AND YET….

The Spanish chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa writes that the Inca Tupac Yupanqui sailed on a balsa sailing raft  from Peru to Easter Island, a distance of 2,400 miles.. 

And Thor Heyerdahl felt sure that Easter Island was first populated by peoples who came from the east. His monumental work “American Indians in the Pacific” went unpublished until he proved the possibility of his theory. He built a raft like that reported by Sarmiento, named it Kon Tiki  and sailed it  westward from Peru on the prevailing westerly trade winds. He missed Easter Island, and landed 101 Days later on Raroia Atoll, in Polynesia’s Tuamotu archipelago a distance of over 5,000 miles.  

There are obviously distinct periods of culture on Easter Island. There are walls there that are inescapably like those seen around Cusco with their perfect polygonal fit. There are also walls that are nowhere nearly so perfectly constructed. It’s interesting to note that when Europeans discovered both Easter Island and the Andean highlands, no one had a clue how to build such walls. 


(Left) Vinapu-Easter Island (Right) Ollantaytambo-Peru What I’m about to suggest is anathema to most current archaeological thinking. This is because current archaeology adamantly refuses to believe that there may have been civilizations of extraordinary capabilities that have been long lost to history and memory. 

BUT LOOK AT THIS!


This is a map of the Pacific Ocean Floor. Once you see what’s underneath the ocean, it becomes more believable that, at one time in the distant past it might have been much easier to get from the mainland to Easter Island. The ridge, marked here in yellow, is called the Nazca Ridge and some of it at least was once above water forming an archipelago connecting Easter Island to the continent. When I first saw this map I was stunned. The implications were profound. It suggested that a very, very old civilization had once existed in both places.  

At the end of the last ice age sea level rose from 200 to 600 feet depending on where you measured. Drop sea level 300 feet and part of the Nazca Ridge would be exposed. But there’s more. This ridge bisects the Nazca tectonic plate which is sliding under the South America Plate and is the fastest moving plate on earth. Suppose some outside force caused a sudden rapid submergence of the plate?

Science is finally coming around to the belief that there was an extraterrestrial impact that occurred around 12,900 years ago. This was when the Mastodon, the Giant Sloth, the Saber tooth Tiger and various other mega fauna were suddenly extinguished.  My question is…. Couldn’t such an impact influence the movement of the tectonic plates?    And if so, could it not indicate that a civilization capable of feats of stone construction we can’t duplicate today have existed long before recorded civilization?  


Richard Nisbet is the author of “Cusco Tales” (www.cuscotales.com) and “The Ancient Walls.”   He lives in Cusco.  He can be contacted at rnisbet@yahoo.com.