Charcoal and Chocolate Connections
What do lava flows in Hawaii, eucalyptus trees in the Andes Mountains of Peru, beehive-shaped ovens in Nevada, and a dog’s ticket to a veterinarian office for an emergency visit all have in common? I can explain.
Mysteries of Inca Moray – Part 2
High in the Andes Mountains, the archaeological site of Moray holds many mysteries. Starting with natural sinkholes, Inca builders lined a set of huge circular depressions with concentric terraces. Constructing Moray required tremendous engineering skill and thousands of hours of construction efforts, so why was it built?
Mysteries of Inca Moray – Part 1
The Incas were accomplished engineers who built long-lasting structures, from Machu Pichu on a ridgetop to the Inca Road system along the spine of the Andes Mountains. A sculpted landscape masterpiece that is less well known is a set of large circular depressions lined with concentric rings of stone-lined terraces. Named Moray and located on a high plain about 20 miles northwest of Cusco, these circles began as deep natural sinkholes with unstable slopes at the angle of repose.
Marvelous Maize
Maize (aka corn) was considered a sacred plant by the Inca, Tiwanaku, Moche and many other ancient Andean cultures. In the Andes Mountains, for millennia the principal use of this plant has been to make an alcoholic beverage called chicha. This beverage was so important to the social and economic functioning of ancient Andean societies that when there was a major disruption in the flow of maize, it helped to trigger the collapse of at least one society that had flourished for hundreds of years.
Machu Picchu’s Unique Geology
Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel high on a ridge in the Andes Mountains, is one of the most impressive and widely recognized archaeological sites on Earth. Since I am fascinated by this spectacular place, I’ve written about it in several blog posts. In a new article I’ve focused on the geology – and this is posted on a website called "GondwanaTalks".
Ancient Andean Ritual Drugs – and Beyond
The Inca, Tiwanaku, Moche, Chavín, and many other indigenous Andean cultures used a variety of plant-based drugs – including hallucinogens and narcotics -- in their religious rituals. When the ancient people ingested what they considered to be sacred plants, access to a separate realm – a supernatural world – could be reliably achieved.
Lahars and Penitentes of Mount Rainier
The beauty of Mt Rainier masks the fact that it is also an active volcano with a high probability of erupting again in the not-too-distant future....Recently I came across a fascinating blog post called "The Penitentes of Mt Rainier" on a blog site called Volcano Café (https://www.volcanocafe.org/).
Rocks, Ropes and Reed Rafts
Hundreds of years before the Inca Empire rose to fame and glory, the Tiwanaku culture flourished in cold and thin air in the Andes Mountains....Collecting and transporting heavy stone blocks from distant quarries were among the many impressive accomplishments of the Tiwanaku people.
Monuments, Megaliths, and Inca Builders
In the Andes Mountains of South America, the Incas and their ancestors invested enormous amounts of time and labor in the meticulous work of quarrying, transporting, and fitting together multi-ton stone blocks, or megaliths, for monumental construction projects..... The ancient Andean stonework is so impressive that many have found it difficult to believe that mere humans, who lacked draft animals and were using only stone-age tools, could be responsible for the construction.
Ancient Metals and Ancient Mines – Part 2
Among the high peaks of the Andes Mountains, gold-bearing quartz veins in the granitic bedrock have been exposed by erosion from ice, wind and water. Numerous ancient small gold mines are found at altitudes that cluster around an impressively high elevation of 16,000 feet.