Kim MacQuarrie’s Peru & South America Blog
Humans (Homo sapiens) ventured out of Africa Some 65,000 years ago. They finally arrived in South America some 14,000 years ago
Earliest Americans Arrived in Waves, DNA Study Finds
July 11, 2012
NYT
North and South America were first populated by three waves of migrants from Siberia rather than just a single migration, say researchers who have studied the whole genomes of Native Americans in South America and Canada.
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New Amazon Highway ‘Would Put Peru’s Last Lost Tribes At Risk‘
Eco-campaigners clash with developers over plan to build 125-mile road through rainforest
June 30, 2012
The Observer
Members of the uncontacted Mashco-Piro tribe photographed through a telescope late last year
A fierce row has broken out over a controversial plan to drive a road through pristine Amazon rainforest, imperilling the future of some of the world’s last uncontacted tribes.
The 125-mile (200km) road would pass through the Alto Purús national park in Peru, connecting a remote area to the outside world but opening up the most biologically and culturally important area of the upper Amazon to logging, mining and drug trafficking. Opponents of the plan fear it will threaten the existence of uncontacted tribes such as the Mashco-Piro. The first detailed photographs of members of the tribe made headlines around the world earlier this year after they were spotted on a riverbank.
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The execution of the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, by the Spanish conquistadors in 1533
(Note: In 1533 Francisco Pizarro captured and executed the Inca emperor at the time, Atahualpa. However, after Atahualpa’s death, three more Inca emperors ruled from the Incas’ rebel capital of Vilcabamba: Sayri Tupac, Titu Cusi, and Tupac Amaru. The Spaniards executed the final Inca emperor, Tupac Amaru, in Cuzco in 1572–almost forty years after Pizarro’s arrival–Kim MacQuarrie).
Ecuador may have found last Inca emperor’s tomb
Agence France-Presse
February 29, 2012
It has been sought for centuries but remained a mystery, still out of reach. Now an expert has pinpointed a site that could be Atahualpa’s resting place: the last Inca emperor’s tomb….
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