Exactly 100 years ago, the explorer Hiram Bingham found Machu Picchu on the eastern slopes of Peru’s soaring Andes mountains. He was not the first to see it since the Incas left centuries before: local farmers were living on the land, and the site appeared on several maps – including that published in 1910 by Inca expert Sir Clements Markham. But he was the first to bring it to the attention of the world. Historian and author Christopher Heaney recounts the events of Hiram Bingham’s expedition that reclaimed Machu Picchu from the jungle.
Issue 48
Numantia: New Model Legion
Numantia in north-eastern Spain is currently the most important Roman Republican military site in the world. Century-old landmark excavations have just been radically reassessed. What have we learnt about the making of the legions?
Mallorca: On the Edge of Empire
During the Dark Ages on the island of Mallorca, culture and religion clashed between the fading Pagans of Rome and the Byzantine and Vandal Christians. Antoni Puig and Mike Elkin examine evidence from excavations at the Byzantine church of Son Peretó to reveal how the new religion developed on the fringes of an empire.
Norway: The First Oil Age
The jagged coast of Northern Scandinavia is littered with strange stone-lined pits once thought to be ancient graves. In fact, they are evidence of Norway’s first oil boom, and archaeologist Gørill Nilsen has the proof. Susan Zimmerman reports.
Afghanistan: A Divided Path
Ten years after the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, what is happening to archaeology in this war-torn country? Joanie Meharry reports from Afghanistan.
Crete: Olives
Olive trees thrive on poor soil where little else will grow, which means land that would otherwise be barren can produce food. This realisation triggered a true agricultural revolution – but when and where did it take place? Colin Renfrew and Evi Margaritis believe the clues were grown on Crete.
Germany: Bronze Age Battle Site
Weapons, horse bones, and human skeletal remains have been found in the bed of the River Tollense, in north-eastern Germany, suggesting that at least 100 people were involved in ferocious horse-mounted and hand-to-hand combat during the Early Bronze Age. Among the fractured and unhealed skulls and bones were found wooden weapons shaped like baseball bats […]
Machu Picchu: Artefacts Returned
The 100th anniversary of the ‘rediscovery’ of Machu Picchu in July 1911 has been marked by the return to Peru of some of the finest of the artefacts excavated from the ancient Inca ruins. They will be housed in a new museum and research centre at the University of Cusco. Dubbed the ‘Lost City of […]
Coming full circle at Arcy-sur-Cure
CWA introduces our new columnist and old friend Charles Higham, who, in this issue, recalls his earliest forays into archaeology, and how the present has a habit of linking up with the past.
Stay at home males and roaming females
The results of a major study of early hominid teeth suggest that our male ancestors tended to stick around close to where they were born but that our female forebears moved away from their birthplace to mate with males from other tribes. These findings come from looking at the isotopes in fossilised teeth, which reflect […]
New Dates for Neanderthal Extinction
Researchers at the University of Oxford and at University College Cork, in Ireland, have dated a Neanderthal fossil discovered in a significant cave site in Russia in the northern Caucasus, and found it to be 10,000 years older than previous research had suggested. The research centres on Mezmaiskaya Cave, a key site in the northern […]
Professor Donny George 1950-2011
Donny George Youkhanna, who died in March following a heart attack, was described as ‘one of the brightest experts on the history of Mesopotamia’ by Iraq’s former Culture Minister Mufid al-Jazairi. Donny George (he dropped his last name) was the former Director of the Iraqi National Museum in Bagdad and fought tirelessly to preserve his […]
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