A satellite for Machu Picchu.

A satellite for Machu Picchu 

In the Ands Mountains, a graduate student from the University of California at Los Angeles, working with a Peruvian archaeologist, has located the remains of an Inca city from which nearby Machu Picchu can easily be seen. "The city was probably one of many agricultural satellites of a main center at Machu Picchu,' says Reinaldo Chohfi of UCLA. Other sites assumed to have once been connected to Machu Picchu have previously been found, but they are much farther from the famous Inca city. The newly discovered site, called Maranpampa, is just across a valley from Machu Picchu, a total distance of about 3 miles.

Chohfi tentatively identified the city after noticing signs of agricultural terraces and "crop' lines in aerial photographs of the jungle surrounding Machu Picchu. He and Octavio Fernandez of the Peruvian National Cultural Institute explored the site in September, locating several stone structures filled with sediment and a massive stone wall--at least 1,000 feet long, 8 feet high and 6 feet thick--probably built by the Incas to protect the city from water and soil runoff from the mountains that jut above it. Several large stone mortars used to grind grain and their accompanying grinding stones were also found.

Excavation of Maranpampa has not yet begun, says Chohfi, and there is no firm date for the site. He estimates the outpost appeared sometime during the period of culture at Machu Pichu, between A.D. 650 and A.D. 1450. Maranpampa and two other nearby cities tentatively identified on aerial photographs have been reported to the Peruvian government, which will oversee further investigations.