Laser Technology Reveals Hidden Pre-Hispanic Roads at Machu Picchu

Archaeologists working near the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu have identified more than 1.5 miles of pre-Hispanic roads, as well as what researchers think could be agricultural terraces and platforms, hidden within the Andean cloud forest. The news was first reported by Heritage Daily, following an announcement by Peru’s Ministry of Culture on August 10.

The structures were discovered using LiDAR—an advanced remote sensing technology that can detect man-made features concealed by vegetation cover—during preliminary survey work conducted in the area in July. Notable among the findings is a road at least ¾ of a mile long with features, including a zigzagging route, characteristic of Inca construction.

Archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built in the 1420s, likely as a seasonal royal residence, and abandoned sometime in the mid 1500s, around the time Spanish conquistadors invaded the Inca Empire. Though it is sometimes incorrectly called “the lost city of the Incas,” archaeological evidence indicates that no more than 750 people lived in Machu Picchu at its peak, most of them essentially support staff to the royal family.

Today, Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage site and Peru’s most-frequented tourist attraction, welcoming more than two million visitors annually. Nevertheless, much remains to be learned about its relationship to the surrounding area in pre-Hispanic times.

The newly identified routes are the result of an inter-institutional agreement between the University of Warsaw’s Center for Andean Studies and the Decentralized Directorate of Culture of Cusco. Future studies will attempt to establish their age, construction methods, and what role they may have played in how people moved through and organized the territory around Machu Picchu.