5,200 holes carved into a Peruvian mountain left by an ancient economy
50 points - yesterday at 5:58 AM
Sourcemekdoonggi
today at 8:17 PM
If they are similar to khipus (used for accounting) perhaps we're looking at the invention of a central bank.
Think about it, the village has a hard year, so they collectively borrow grain from another village. How do you settle disputes about exactly how much was borrowed? You build a big thing on the edge of town that everyone can see and can't destroy without a bunch of effort.
Peru is a marvelous country, and one of the greatest trip destinations in the world. A travel guide described Peru as the Egypt of the Americas. I went there just knowing about the Incas, but they one just one among dozens of civilizations. It blows your mind.
The greatest sadness is to see the amount of wonders destroyed by the Spanish invaders.
I think this comment is substantially more informative than the article itself:
https://newatlas.com/environment/5-200-holes-peruvian-mounta...
Each hole is constructed- dug out and lined with rock.
These are not mining holes, nor used to store things.
If you want to store stuff, you would put these pits
along the bottom of the hill, not running a long distance
up the hill.
They tried to keep the lines somewhat straight, crossing
gullies. I can't guess what valid use they might have had,
other than religious. They seem pointless.
I wonder why the commenter discounts the idea that they were used to store things. Especially since the article gives evidence that things were stored in the holes:
"Hole soil analysis also found ancient pollens of maize – a key staple in the Andes – and reeds traditionally used for basket-making. In addition to this, there were traces of squash, amaranth, cotton, chili peppers and other crops that haven't been farmed on the arid land where Monte Sierpe sits. Because many of these plants produce little airborne pollen, it's unlikely they settled in the holes naturally."
> Especially since the article gives evidence that things were stored in the holes
They explain it as these holes are at the top of the mountain. Why climb the large mountain to store your grain there just to have haul it back down later? My own guess answers: safer from animals, precipitation, safe from enemies.
Storing in general could mean different things: putting baskets with grain and produce there for a minute and them someone else immediately pick it up in some bartering exchange, it's not really storing then, I guess? Or, even religious offerings can also be explained as "storing" -- they are stored in there until the "gods" (i.e. elements) destroy them (i.e. consume them) and the gods are appeased, that way ensuring good harvests and other benefits.
jasonwatkinspdx
today at 8:18 PM
Yeah, they're just assuming that if you wanted to store something you'd store it at the bottom of the hill.
While I'm no archeologist/anthropologist, I have seen an ancient grainery near the green river in Utah. It was about an hour long very steep half hike half rock scramble to get up to the ledge where it was at.
So maybe ancient people had reasons to put storage sites in more difficult to access locations.
Religion always seems like the default explanation for anything without an obvious use and it seems lazy. Maybe it was a game, a rite of passage, a boundary marker, or perhaps there was a Peruvian Mr. Beast running a competition. Anyone else remember the Cards Against Humanity "Holiday Hole"?
stevenwoo
today at 8:20 PM
We can only speculate on evidence we have. The prehistoric chubby dolls (Venus figurines) from archaeological digs that many hypothesized to be fertility totems can be hypothesized to be just idealized symbols of female form as the shape changed depending upon the average temperature - ice age meant fatter dolls, temperate times meant thinner dolls.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-mystery-of-the-enigmatic-ve...
We always want to pretend that we're better and more evolved than those knuckle draggers of ages past -- simply because someone else made a computer for us to use.
Here's my hypothesis from ignorance: I don't know much about South America but understand that they freeze dry potatoes on high slopes?
Perhaps they dry best in these holes, the community built them together, like building an oven or kiln, the regularity and sections of 50 holes allow to track whose produce is where; and maybe you sell them on at the same time.
Or, how about ice collection - each hole gets filled with water/snow, it freezes, the lumps are the right size for carrying back to an ice hole. Maybe they can slide them down the slope like a historical ice-cube dispenser.
throaskjdsakn
today at 6:56 PM
ChromeXX January 1, 2026 10:38 AM
It's safe to say, since it's been proven these holes exist all over the Amazon, that they were created to catch or divert animals, to keep them from reaching their village. After finding the normal route of the animals and their crossings, the holes were possibly dug to confuse the animals and funnel them into the small foot traffic areas to be caught and killed - whether for food or to control their travel. If it would stop humans from wanting to traverse the land, animals wouldn't want to either. Also, I see "scientists" make this mistake over and over; the lay of the land now is not what it was back then, and large ravines that are there now may have been lush with greenery and completely flat. Earthquakes and landslides could have completely changed the overall landscape by now too.
idiotsecant
today at 7:08 PM
Greentext name, bold unfounded claims, 'scientists' in smug quotes. Troll, arrow down and move on.
throaskjdsakn
today at 7:16 PM
twenty XD faces because im not smart enough to satirize actual morons because i am one
its another comment from parents link
pinkmuffinere
today at 7:05 PM
> It's safe to say, since it's been proven these holes exist all over the Amazon, that they were created to catch or divert animals, to keep them from reaching their village
Are you serious? There's an absolutely massive logical leap from [these holes exist all over the Amazon] -> [they were created to catch or divert animals]. Do you have some other evidence to argue in favor of this?
throaskjdsakn
today at 7:15 PM
its another comment from the link lol
FrameworkFred
today at 7:17 PM
It would make sense that the holes were a convenient way of thinking and speaking about large quantities of goods such that tribes of people might want to exchange. It would be a very visual way of comparing dissimilar goods, like "1 hole has 50 alpaca skins and I need 200 for the shelter I'm planning to build, so I need 4" and "1 hole has 8 baskets of dried fish which can last 3 families thru the winter, so I need 3 for the nine families on the farm", etc.
And I bet they paid a bit of rent for the privilege. Pretty cool.
The holes were created without concern for slope angle or whether there was a drainage arroyo. To me this does not indicate something of secular practical usage. I'd lean toward a ritualistic behavior that had to happen in a certain place, tied with previous performances of the ritual, and performed many times. Question: can they date the holes at either end?
So is that 1.04 Albert Hall holes?
opengrass
today at 7:03 PM
Maybe they were looking for a chest containing jewels, deeds, and promissory notes.
"And here on this mountainside, we store roman dodecahedrons..."