Mysterious holes in the Andes may have been an ancient marketplace | Hacker News Reader

Mysterious holes in the Andes may have been an ancient marketplace

sydney.edu.au

60 pointsgmays35 comments

"Analyses of soil from the holes found ancient pollens of maize (corn), one of the most important staple crops in the Andes, and reeds that have traditionally been used over millennia for making baskets. These unexpected findings importantly indicate that people deposited plants in the holes, using woven baskets and/or bundles for transport."

That's a stretch. All it indicates to me is that these people ate and they had woven baskets.

It does seem an unlikely place for a market:

13°42′59.9″S 75°52′28.46″W

If there really were baskets of corn there, it seems more likely it was used for storage, and situated along the ridge not too far from the valley floor to protect the crops from floods and perhaps raids. Picture (a) in the article has a defensive settlement marked nearby.

Still, a very enigmatic site

Just where I'd put a marketplace: in a large linear formation on top of a mountain ridge.

I mostly agree, it’s weird.

However the region has little in the way of flat ground and the nice flat valley floor is very very flood prone.

There were a large number of of Incan markets at elevation in the Andes. If your civilization was built around the productivity of terrace farming - then people will be living at high elevation.

What you describe has no relationship to the photos in the article.

When the barbarians come to raid, it’s much easier to tip a rock over to stop them.

“I have the high ground” became a meme because of the Star Wars prequels but it was a legitimate force multiplier.

The US has a military strategy of air supremacy, notably different from air dominance, because of how easy it is to win when you can just let go of a rock and it’s guided to your enemy by gravity.

> “I have the high ground” ... was a legitimate force multiplier.

There are a huge number of places in Europe where the town has grown around the Old Castle, and the Old Castle has been a fortification of some sort since a very long time ago (often pre-Roman), and it's on a hill near a bend on a river - high ground, defensible and also transport links.

Everywhere from Edinburgh to Kraków.

You need to read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"...

I don’t, libertarian ideals like that book die the first time they meet an organized group of bears[1]

Also if I recall they were in underground cities in that book and not clinging to the edge of a mountainside like invaders would be doing in regards to the content of the original post

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...

Funny how even TNR recognizes that the bears were not the cause of the group’s fizzling out, nor has the state managed a solution.

Oh I’m sorry, that was a tongue in cheek reference to a known event that I assume /u/ancapistani is familiar with unless you have the luckiest random user name ever.

The point was that libertarian ideals fail whenever faced with a problem that requires a societal level response since the members are incapable of working together due to their own selfishness, e.x. Someone feeding the bears that were causing their neighbors harm

And the state hasn’t managed a solution to bears? They mustered the banners and had their hunters kill them all back when it was a problem.

The libertarians are the ones arguing that I should be allowed to run a bear farming factory next to the kindergarten with a suspiciously high number of bear related deaths per capita for children.

Your perception of my username is correct.

I’m quite familiar with the failings of these sorts of social experiments. I followed the Free State Project from its inception, watched Anarchon happen in real time, etc. I get what you’re saying. I have two points to make in response.

The first is that libertarian experiments in the last 20 years or so in the Western world have tended to draw the most extreme and outspoken members of the group. Those people also tend to value what they consider to be ideological purity over effectiveness, and tend to have strong/abrasive personalities. There’s a good deal of selection bias happening here.

The second is that I personally believe that the more extreme an idea is, the more consistently educated and motivated the participants must be in order for it to work. As an extreme example: I want to see the US government disappear. That’s a bold statement, but hear me out for a moment. If we all woke up tomorrow morning and government at all levels from municipal to federal were gone, it would be a disaster. The same would be true of any sort of coup. The only way for a stateless society to exist and be functional is if the people no longer need or desire a state. To put it another way - I don’t want a government that we can “drown in a bathtub”, I want us to move toward a world where one day we realize it’s no longer serving a purpose.

I’m in no way threatened if you disagree with me here, I’m just compelled to clarify when I see libertarian beliefs being dismissed because a specific problem exists when the same problem exists in the status quo.

No political system is perfect. Our current system _certainly_ isn’t. It’s intellectually lazy to oppose a change on the grounds that it doesn’t solve everything.

As long as you aren’t claiming the corporate boot actually tastes great it’s only government issued boots that can’t be licked, I tend to be fine with libertarians but, especially after the Mises Caucus takeover of the party and its collapse in many states, those types are exceedingly rare and you will excuse me if I don’t extend the benefit of the doubt to someone who wears parts of their ideology as a name

Now that the furor has died down: "how easy it is to win when you can just let go of a rock and it’s guided to your enemy by gravity"

...that's literally the main plot point of the book: "The Moon lets go of a rock and it's guided to Earth by gravity."

Libertarian ideals aside, if you want a better introspection into political ideologies by the same author, "Starship Troopers" provided lots of food for thought.

Be well, kind stranger!

Ah, is that where Orson Scott Card got the “the enemy gate is down” idea from in Enders Game?

Top photo looks like mining to me.

There are easier ways to mine gravel and sedimentary rock than a long series of shallow holes you've lined with stone walls and stored produce in.

Notably, if you go about 10m to the side along parts of the wall, you can just mine the erosive slope for gravel without even digging. There are no notable mineral deposits in this area and it doesn't follow a geologic layer.

I was thinking of a vein along the ridge, and a particular digging technique, along with the wear depressions on the slope.

But it seems someone actually read the article. Though corn pollen is not proof of produce and wicker baskets could carry anything.

It's 1.5km long. It would sure suck to be the guy selling products at the far end.

Idk I'm not an archaeologist or an anthropologist but the idea it's a market sure seems farfetched to me.

The holes don't have to be the physical location where the goods were sold. It's just where they're stored. Think of the lots at a big auction, arranged in rows behind the bidding house/tent. You bid on a standardized lot and when you win it you go collect your goods from stall X, which you might have inspected before the sale. That's similar to what the authors are proposing here for markets, which is only one of a number of possibilities they offer.

Schizophrenic hermit starts digging holes 4000 years ago. Archeologists today: marketplace!

I joke, a little. But it also makes me think of findings like all those ancient voluptuous “Venus” figurines found the world over. Signs of a global fertility goddess as archaeologists theorize, or merely an early form of Hustler magazine?

Maybe he should have checked out Maria Reiche, because this doesn't pass the smell test. A marketplace would look totally different to a long band of holes. The storage theory looks more plausible

I'm curious to what degree pre-Columbian civilizations aren't well understood due to the lack of evidence beyond our control, versus the lack of study/attention to the region. I imagine the dense and difficult terrain doesn't help either.

A huge part of the problem is the whole "burning every Maya book" thing that some spanish dudes decided to embark on. Various ethnic cleansing campaigns over the last two centuries or so, not to mention the impact of disease.

Its a real tragedy the colonizers didn't think to preserve the world they were conquering.

Modern Maya are starting to learn how to read and write their own language again but that only happened in the last 40 years or so. (They never forgot how to speak it.)

Most of their written knowledge was lost forever as you point out.

Reboot magazine recently published an article about making a Mayan keyboard:

https://joinreboot.org/p/how-to-build-a-mayan-keyboard

Seems more like intentional basins to catch snow and hold the snowpack longer into the spring to keep the surrounding soil moist for crops nearby ?

I read the article and decided to do a little looking around the area to see how everything stacked up so that I could decide for myself how the site was used. I used Google Earth and Street View to lay everything in the proper context geographically so that the reader can understand how it fits with the local cultural context.

The site is located on a low ridge that is oriented roughly N-S on the north side of the Pisco River, an intermittent river in western Peru that drains from the mountains into the Pacific Ocean. The first screenshot shows the general geographical context. [0]

[0] [Band-of-Holes-General-Geographical-Setting.png](https://postimg.cc/XpQ65nRJ)

The Pisco River valley is located between the well-known Nazca Plain with it's geopglyphs and the less well-known Chincha Valley with it's geoglyphs. I found a nice paper detailing the thoughts about the origin and age of the geopglyphs in the Chincha Valley. It is a short paper that is interesting reading. [1]

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1406501111

To get an idea of the local setting for the Band of Holes or Huella de la Serpiente as they are known locally which translates as Serpent Footprint I have another Google Earth screenshot that illustrates the location and it's proximity to a wide agricultural plain on either bank of the Pisco River. The Pisco River is an intermittent river, in fact in the Google Earth views there is no water behind the dam. It looks barren and a great place to avoid if there are flash floods in the forecast. The detailed view of the site is in this screenshot [2].

[2] [Band-of-Holes-Detailed-Geographical-Setting.png](https://postimg.cc/qgGsH7hx)

So that one can conclude as I did that the site was unlikely to have been used as a defensive feature and that it makes more sense for it to have been a local granary for the region's farmers I have a series of slides showing the site in map view and in street view. The first slide is zoomed into the site. [3] One can see the dark line of holes to the right of the thin yellow trace. At the southern end (the screenshot and most others are oriented N-S), we see a semicircular ridge that can be used to locate the site from a street level view. The locals call this the Huella de la Serpiente, probably because it looks a lot like the trace that a snake would leave across the open ground as it slithers.

[3] [Huella-de-la-serpiente-Google-Earth-annotated.png](https://postimg.cc/rz5h0cdR)

At the south end of the serpent track there is a feature that can assist locating the site in Google Street View, a high tension power line pylon. It is visible just below center just to the right of the end of the Band of Holes. It's shadow extends across the ground roughly towards the pickup truck parked near the irrigation canal. [4] This is probably the serpent's tail.

[4] [Huella-de-la-serpiente-Google-Earth-detail-annotated.png](https://postimg.cc/MfGbFkD0)

Looking up slope on Google Earth we can locate the serpent's head at the oval erosional feature. [5] The width of the Band of Holes is approximately 17 m (55.7 ft) from top to bottom though it does vary in places.

[5] [Huella-de-la-serpiente-Head-Google-Earth-detail-annotated.png](https://postimg.cc/qz4dg17c)

One can get an idea of the positioning of the Band of Holes along the ridge in the next Google Earth screenshot that is taken near the middle of the Huella de la Serpiente. You can see how it hugs the highest part of the low ridge on the western side of the divide where water would naturally flow into the channels either side of the ridge. [6]

[6] [Huella-de-la-serpiente-line-Google-Earth-detail-annotated.png](https://postimg.cc/xcJFfHvM)

It may be difficult to understand the context of the site until you see it from ground level. That is what the next set of screenshots will provide, a Google Street View display taken from a location along the road just north of the river looking out across the agricultural fields on the valley floor. The first slide shows the ground level view from the road. [7]

[7] [Huella-de-la-serpiente-street-view.png](https://postimg.cc/G4zD6g4q)

Since you may not auto-orient and instantly recognize the site from ground level without a bit of assistance I have labeled and noted relevant features for you. [8]

[8] [Huella-de-la-serpiente-street-view-annotated.png](https://postimg.cc/PvkNC1Lx)

The final slide has been zoomed into the site so that it is easier to correlate the features noted in Google Earth Map View with things that are visible in Street View. [9]

[9] [Huella-de-la-serpiente-street-view-detail-annotated.png](https://postimg.cc/Ln9LvMX8)

After seeing all of it in Street View it seems most likely that the site was a large granary where the farmers stored their grain for consumption and for next season's crops. It is likely that the grain and other products were stored in woven baskets that were sized to fit the holes along the ridge which seem to be consistently sized. With appropriate covers it could all be weather proof and durable while being protected from scavengers. That low ridge appears to me to serve no useful purpose as a defensive feature since it is one of many similar ridges in that valley. The ridge is not tall enough nor is it steep enough to be a hazard to climb and if it was used for storage, everything would be convenient to the fields across the Pisco River Valley. The fact that it is located in a wide spot in the valley makes it even more likely to have been used as a granary. I'm sure someone could come up with a volume of seed that could be stored in this collection of holes along the Huella de la Serpiente. That would help others understand how many people the site could feed or how many acres of seed crop could be planted.

If you do this though, please do not list the volume in terms of Olympic sized swimming pools. Use something that would be more universally understood.

Partial agree on the food storage location.

However, I would also suggest the connection to the Amaru myth of the Nazca and Incas (and Andean civilizations in general). [1] Possible reason it was laid out in a snake pattern petroglyph rather than just being a large collection of holes relatively near the valley floor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaru_(mythology)

"amaru or katari (aymara) is a mythical serpent or dragon ... associated with the vital waters that irrigated the farmlands"

From Google "two-headed snakes mountain snakes symbolizing fertility, rain, and rebirth"

The digging pattern definitely looks like a riff on serpent's scales, and snake geoglyphs show up all over the Andes. May have been put in that shape for the implied crop fertility, rain, and vital water benevolence of the Amaru along with events that may have been held up at the top of the mountain. Looks like there's an old path that got widened into a somewhat modern road up to the top. It both stores food in terms of a granary, and also serves as a religious geoglyph implying a positive connection to Amaru (or similar) snake concepts viewed as beneficial for crops, rain, ect...

Very interesting! This would tie in nicely with the long tradition of geoglyphs across coastal Peru. I agree that the pattern of holes could be interpreted as scales on a snake the way they interlock. I wonder whether the tail end at the valley floor extends into the agricultural fields or whether it simply ends at the pylon and, with that in mind, it seems likely that the engineers could've slid that pylon footing 10 m further east so that it wasn't on the band of holes. There is a road across them now at the pylon. It likely began as a foot trail a long time ago and each generation of farmer used it in turn as the flood plain filled with rich soil from each successive crop.

I considered storage as the most likely use case because it is convenient to the fields at the widest part of the worked area along the river and it is elevated above the flood plain far enough and in an arid area so that the likelihood of seed loss to mold or moisture is minimized. Being there spread along the ridge offers insulation from many of the common problems related to seed storage if you consider that each hole could hold a basket tightly woven from reeds gathered along the river. Each basket could have a colorful lid such that patterns could be made along the ridge that are visible from surrounding countryside so that their snake would appear to be moving up the mountain.

It's hard for us to know how it was used but I like the multi-use possibility that you have described based on incorporation of their own myths. These people had an intimate relationship with their landscape and used durable symbols to help manage their lives and customs. Thanks for that link!

The colorful basket lids idea seems likely. The Amaru had a lot of similarity with Quetzalcōātl. [1] "the wind, the guide and road sweeper of the rain gods, of the masters of the water, of those who brought rain" Lots of symbology with rainbows after the rainstorm. Also look like a colorful serpent across the sky.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcōātl

On the path extending in the field, it's possible, since it looks like there's a slight contrast difference in the fields. With modern archaeology tools like ground penetrating radar [2] it's possible that there would be revealed subsurface path structures or the remnants of holes and prior digging sites. Here's an example from a German Wikipedia (needs translation) that shows fields with contrast features vs what GPR picked up on a survey. [3]

At the top of the path it looks like it used to be wider and either broadened into a large scale feature, or split into two paths near each other. [4]

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar

[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreisgrabenanlage_Velm

[4] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Huella+de+la+Serpiente/@-1...

Agreed that GPR could be a useful tool for tracking the full extent at the valley floor. It is likely that sedimentation and agricultural activity have combined to help bury that end in sediment.

The head of the serpent is interesting as you note. The pattern breaks at the neck and there is the second short line of holes to the east that does not have a matching set on the west side of the line unless it is completely buried. A lidar or GPR survey may help understand that slope.

I found this serpent amulet on Etsy [0] that implies that the word Amaru means serpent in Quechua so I looked that up and found a nice description that may help explain breaking the pattern at the head. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaru_(mythology)

The Amaru serpent could manifest with several different heads so the people who made this example may have used the natural bowl to show their local version of the Amaru that they believed would provide their desired results - rain, crops, etc.

[0] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1487839343/peruvian-hand-carved...

Another thing that I have not seen considered is that these holes may have been used to hold vessels for storing wine or brandy made from grapes that grew in the region. Evidently Pisco is a type of wine produced in the Nazca region in pre-Columbian times. [2] The vessels in the photo which store the wine may be a design passed down since ancient times. If you have a series of holes in the ground of a consistent size and you produce lots of vessels for storing something that you produce locally and those vessels are size to fit the holes in the Band of Holes then maybe this was their wine storage site.

[2] https://www.exploorperu.com/blog/peru/pisco-culture/

As another possible explanation, though it does seem possible it also seems a bit far-fetched and would definitely require some drone study I found this site [3] which claims to see pictograph symbols in the chain of holes when viewing the site from Google Earth satellite view taken on a specific date.

[3] https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion/mysterious-holes-per...

It's interesting whatever they were doing.

the uniform size suggests each hole contained some device or container, whether wine, food, both. Either storage or factory as in wine. Baskets and maize suggestive of corn storage or corn booze

Very interesting that you suggest corn booze in addition to wine. Chicha was a traditional fermented drink made from corn (maize) and other grain crops. It was fermented in large ceramic vessels according to this source [0]. One of the links I had earlier to the wine making showed ceramic vessels that looked consistently sized and shaped and I think it is possible that they are in a traditional design. I wonder whether anyone has tried fitting a similar modern vessel into one of the holes after excavating to near it's original design.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicha

I did find another recent paper that suggests that the site was part of an Inca tribute collection system where everyone's tributes would be tallied. It is a very interesting paper and offers another plausible use case for the site in the context of what they have already found in the area. [1]

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300501765_The_Stran...

Perhaps tributes were paid in grain, or liquid products. Near the end of the paper they note that:

>In either regard, the line of holes at Monte Sierpe would have provided an ideal place to deposit tribute, where it could be easily recorded by the accountants of the Inca state (quipucamayoc) on site and then transported to Tambo Colorado or wherever the Inca authorities desired.

This valley was an important valley along the ancient Inca road so it makes sense that they would need a place to store things for distribution or to accumulate them for tributes.

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