If this is old hat for you, feel free to browse the Subversive Archaeologist for something you didn't know before. BUT, for you who, like me, were one of the last people on the planet to still think that Pizarro and a couple of hundred treasure hunters single-handedly [well, I guess that would be 200 handedly] brought down the Inca Empire, read on and feast on the video embedded here, courtesy of the United States Public Broadcasting System.This film, The Great Inca Rebellion, tells the story of two Peruvian archaeologists who undertook excavation of a huge Inca cemetery on the outskirts of Lima, and who, in the early 2000s found compelling evidence for events that one had only imagined must have occurred during Pizzaro's rape of the Inca Empire. Instead of a couple of hundred swashbuckling Spaniards overthrowing the Inca and his empire, Pizarro and his men did so with the willing assistance of those groups who had fallen under the thumb of the aforementioned Inca, Atahualpa. They say that history is written by the victors. In this case you might even want to say that history was rewritten over and over again by the victors, to such a degree that the hired help just disappeared from everyone's consciousness, leaving Pizarro making bank to the detriment of the 'heathens.' And so, when it came time for the archaeologists to interpret what they were seeing in the most-recent stratigraphic position in this cemetery, they needed to think well 'outside the box' of history. If you were previously unaware of this work, you'll be as impressed as I was by the detective work, even before the forensic ringers from the States appear on the scene.This is a story about some present-day and archaeological 'local heroes.' Prepare to be impressed and heartened by the outcome. The bastards who razed the Inca Empire didn't do it without some serious assistance. [Much, it turns out, as in the case of Hernán Cortés, who ransacked the Aztecs ONLY with the help of a multitude of disaffected nearby peoples that had been previously conquered by Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (A.K.A. Montezuma or Moctezuma) c. 1466--29 June 1520.] Watch The Great Inca Rebellion on PBS. See more from NOVA. Thank you for your continued support!SA announces new posts on the Subversive Archaeologist's facebook page (mirrored on Rob Gargett's news feed), on Robert H. Gargett's Academia.edu page, Rob Gargett's twitter account, and his Google+ page. A few of you have already signed up to receive email when I post. Others have subscribed to the blog's RSS feeds. You can also become a 'member' of the blog through Google Friend Connect. Thank you for your continued patronage. You're the reason I do this.
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