Writer, anthropologist and four-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Kim MacQuarrie spent five years living in Peru. While exploring one of the country’s most hidden regions, he filmed a group of indigenous people whose ancestors remembered their contacts with the Inca empire. Their stories were passed down in the oral tradition. And so the seeds for this riveting book were sewn.
Not only has Macquarrie worked in locations as far-flung as Siberia and Papua New Guinea, but he is rightly considered one of the foremost experts on the history of Peru, and indeed the Incas. The Last Days of the Incas is authoritative, exhaustively researched, entertaining but factual.
MacQuarrie’s narrative style is accessible and contemporary, making this an enthralling account of one of the most fascinating periods in world history. It’s more of an epic adventure yarn than a plodding history book.
Few lost tribes have captured the world’s imagination the way the Incas have. Though the Children of the Sun ruled a swathe of South America for a relatively short time – the Inca heyday lasted about 90 years – their legacy lives on, both as the proud heritage of modern Andean nations and in the minds of modern pilgrims, who travel in their thousands to see Machu Picchu, fabled Lost City of the Incas.
When the Spanish arrived in Peru in 1532, they found the Incas ruling over about two million square kilometres, known as Tawantinsuyu (“The Four Parts Together”). How did the Incas form a vast unified state across mountainous territory? And what is the truth behind the mythical origins of these people? These are two key questions this lavishly illustrated monograph attempts to answer.
Submitted by Sean Williams on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 18:46
Experts working at an ancient Inca archaeological site claim three skulls discovered in a ceremonial vessel prove the civilisation cut off the heads of their enemies. The skulls were found by a Peruvian team digging at the ancient ceremonial centre of Qowicarana Ridge, just north of Cuzco. Now the team hopes to find the remains of the trio's bodies, to prove whether they were actually decapitated - either during or after battle.
Washington Camacho, director of Sacsayhuaman Archaeological Park, says the heads most likely belong to rival chiefs (curacas) or religious leaders of enemy tribes. The heads would have been taken as trophies of war, and offered to the gods. Camacho says the ritual offering of heads occurred during the mysterious culture's final throes, around 1500 AD, under the rule of Huayna Capac.
These newly-released images of plain pottery sherds may not look much, but they they are at the centre of a potential rethink about the history of human contact with the Galapagos Islands. Check out the HK news story about the discovery here.
This South American pottery most likely dates to Inca times (16th century and earlier) and may be the remains of a pre-Columbian voyage to the Galapagos Islands – by people from South America.
Dr. Simon Haberle, of Australian National University, has said that Andean coastal South American Pottery, possibly Incan, has been discovered on the Galapagos Islands. The islands are nearly 1,000 kilometers off the coast of South America, and it’s been widely believed, until now, that the first people to reach the Galapagos were European explorers in 1535.
Dr. Haberle, along with Professor Atholl Anderson, is leading a team of scientists who are looking for evidence that people voyaged on the Galapagos Islands before Europeans arrived in the 16th century. They’ve been re-analyzing all the pottery that has been discovered in the Galapagos Islands so far. Dr. Haberle said that only a small amount of coastal South American pottery has been found in this assemblage.
Anthropologist and co-director of the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage and Museum Practices
Dr Helaine Silverman, who holds a Ph.D from the University of Texas, is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her secondary appointments are in the Department of Landscape Architecture, Program in Art History, Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, and Campus Honors Program. She also is a member of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies. She is the Co-Director of the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage and Museum Practices.
Her primary research interests include heritage theory and management, critical museum studies, tourism, cultural memory, identity, globalisation, nationalism, appropriations of the past, urbanism, architectural and landscape history, spatial theory, cultures of death, Southeast Asia, Central Andean archaeology, and complex societies.
These newly-released images of plain pottery sherds may not look much, but they they are at the centre of a potential rethink about the history of human contact with the Galapagos Islands. Check out the HK news story about the discovery 
Dr. Simon Haberle
