PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA—Elizabeth Arkush of the University of Pittsburgh suggests that the Colla people fled their homes in Ayawiri, a hillfort in Peru’s southern central Andes, when the Incas attacked around A.D. 1450, according to a report in The International Business Times. Arkush and her team uncovered valuable bronze jewelry, metal tools, and intact pottery in the round, stone houses at the site. She argues that the metal items, tools, and pots are things that the Colla would have taken with them if they had had time to pack their belongings. “Even if a metal object is broken, you can melt or hammer it into something else,” she explained. “You can always recycle metal.” Some of the high-status residents may have known the Inca invasion was coming, since fewer objects were found in their homes. The people are thought to have lived in smaller settlements in the countryside after they fled from their town. “But exactly where the people of Ayawiri went, we don’t know,” she said. For more, go to “In Search of History's Greatest Rulers: Atahualpa, Last Inca Emperor.”
