Thursday, June 28 at 8pm & 11pm
NOVA goes to an impoverished suburb of Lima, Peru, where an ancient
cemetery crammed with mummies is excavated. Peruvian archaeologist
Guillermo Cock uncovers evidence that reveals the untold final
chapter of the Spanish conquest
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Original PBS Broadcast Date: June 26, 2007
Through a mix of crime-lab science, archeology, and history, this
NOVA/National Geographic special presents new evidence that is
changing what we know about the final days of the once-mighty Inca
Empire. This probing story of archeological discovery begins in a
cemetery crammed with skeletons that offer tantalizing clues about a
fierce 16th-century battle between warriors of the collapsing Inca
Empire and Spanish invaders. Now, the long-accepted account of a
swift Spanish conquest of the Inca—achieved with guns, steel, and
horses—is being replaced by a more complete story based on surprising
new evidence, including what may be the first gunshot wound in the
Americas.
The largest empire in pre-Columbian America, the Inca ruled the most
advanced civilization in the New World. By the time the Spanish
arrived, the Inca had built the breathtaking city of Machu Picchu,
pioneered a sophisticated system of high-altitude highways, and
forged luxurious treasures of gold (see Rise of the Inca). So how
could a tiny Spanish army of gold-seeking adventurers bring the
powerful Inca Empire, home to over 10 million people, so quickly to
its knees?
According to traditional historical accounts, Francisco Pizarro and
his band of fewer than 200 Spanish conquistadors, in search of
treasure and power, vanquished the Inca emperor and his army in a
bloody ambush in 1532. It was said that the Inca, overwhelmed by the
Spaniards’ horses and weapons, and vulnerable to the infectious
diseases they carried, quickly succumbed and surrendered.
But the latest archeological findings and historical analysis from
leading experts, like archeologist Guillermo Cock and ethnohistorian
Maria Rostworowski, both Peruvians, support a different version of
the story, one that historians have long suspected. Their field
research, forensic science, and recently discovered documents suggest
that it took the Spanish years, as well as the formation of military
alliances with thousands of Indian mercenaries, to defeat the Inca
Empire.
This program delves into the intriguing process of how science is
helping to rewrite the history of the Spanish conquest. The story
begins in Puruchuco, an Inca cemetery uncovered in the modern suburbs
of Lima, where Guillermo Cock and his team of archeologists have
found a strange group of more than 70 skeletons unlike any unearthed
there before. Hastily buried in shallow graves, many of the corpses
are shockingly mutilated, their bones crushed and marked with deep
cuts, suggestive of battle injuries (see Grave Analysis). For Cock,
these grim remains were an exhilarating find, providing fresh insight
into the Incas’ demise.
To confirm suspicions about how these warriors buried in Puruchuco
had been killed, Cock approached forensic scientists at the Henry C.
Lee Institute of Forensic Science at the University of New Haven. One
head wound was a perfectly round hole. Along its inner rim the
forensic team identified fragments of iron, strongly suggesting that
the hole was a bullet wound from a Spanish arquebus, a primitive but
deadly gun. If true, it would be the first documented gunshot wound
in the New World.
Combining these latest developments with newly explored 16th-century
historical records, the film recreates an untold final chapter of the
conquest. What emerges is a never-before- told account of a protracted
and intensely brutal war in which the weakened Inca were forced to
battle not only a small core of well-armed conquistadors but also a
far larger supporting army of Indians who were key to turning the
tide against them.
