TV Program Description
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.
Program Transcript
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