Radiocarbon dates push back the Inca empire and Saqsaywaman’s megalithic rebuild
A Science news feature reports that Andean archaeologists are replacing the traditional Inca chronology (empire from 1438) with radiocarbon dates. At Saqsaywaman, dated charcoal suggests the site began to be remodelled with fitted masonry around 1400, with construction peaking from about 1418; the first results are in press at Antiquity.
Why it matters: It dates the shift to the famous zigzag megalithic walls, which is central to the debate over who built them.
Mainstream view: The excavators link the rebuild with the rise of the Inca state in the early 1400s, decades earlier than the chronicles say.
Alternative view: Researchers who argue for a pre-Inca megalithic phase, such as Brien Foerster, hold that the Inca reused older walls; radiocarbon dates organic finds in excavated layers, not the stones themselves.
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