Machu Picchu, the most famous landmark of Inca civilization, was believed to be built around A.D. 1438. A new study, co-authored by Jason Nesbitt, associate professor of anthropology at the School of Liberal Arts, suggests the citadel may have been built some two decades earlier. Nesbitt, along with researchers from Yale and the University of California–Santa Cruz used accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) — an advanced form of radiocarbon dating — to determine the age of human remains recovered during the early 20th century at the site.

Professor of Anthropology John Verano’s excavation of the site of a 500-year-old mass child sacrifice that took place on the northern coast of Peru is featured in the February National Geographic magazine. The article, “An Unthinkable Sacrifice,” provides details about the findings, including how some of the children were killed, how they were buried and the growing number of skeletons recovered from ongoing excavations.