The holes were created without concern for slope angle or whether there was a drainage arroyo. To me this does not indicate something of secular practical usage. I'd lean toward a ritualistic behavior that had to happen in a certain place, tied with previous performances of the ritual, and performed many times. Question: can they date the holes at either end?
Each hole is constructed- dug out and lined with rock.
These are not mining holes, nor used to store things.
If you want to store stuff, you would put these pits
along the bottom of the hill, not running a long distance
up the hill.
They tried to keep the lines somewhat straight, crossing
gullies. I can't guess what valid use they might have had,
other than religious. They seem pointless.
My initial thought was these were probably “drilled out” probably with an animal walking in circles, almost like a horse walker but with a drill bit attachment
"If you want to store stuff, you would put these pits
along the bottom of the hill, not running a long distance
up the hill."
Unless you want more favorable conditions for long term storing, or in case a enemy comes and blunders what is easily avaiable at the bottom of the hill.
Huh, and there I would have assumed this was defensive architecture akin to the Great Wall of China (albeit more rudimentary). I’m guessing that was ruled out early.
I agree. I also appreciate how the commenter feels at peace with acknowledging and accepting the fact that he does not want to guess because we simply do not have enough information and may never have enough.
It’s exactly what frustrates me so much about supposed “scientists” like the one quoted in the article; they say “we don’t know what something is for” then these “scientists” offer and apply all kinds of fanciful imaginative purposes and state them with authority that people accept.
I think it should be professionally disqualifying for scientists to propose any kind of theory or fanciful and imaginative purpose unless there has been rigorous debate and there is a solid theory backed by multiple points of evidence. Making unverifiable claims based on internal imagination and biases does not help and can even cause corruption of science, as I know for a fact happens.
You only have to hear “scientists” with PhDs openly say variations of the following most egregious example; “I just draw the graph and then look for the data to support it”, to know why sciences are so corrupted in many places.
I understand why people do it, especially if it’s your life, but science is largely about the disciplining human nature, something that seems to be crumbling and failing in many ways across many domains in the American empire.
Maybe this was almost like an early version of blockchain where earlier holes were no longer used for some reason and only new holes were used and this allowed you to continuously build up a history. In other words maybe we each row was a new year and required both sets of trading partners to participate in its creation
>I can't guess what valid use they might have had,other than religious. They seem pointless.
I agreed there are for religious purposes but certainly not pointless for them.
My hypothesis is that it is for their offerings to God, perhaps a fraction from the population fresh produced. In religion like Islam you need to set aside 2.5% of yearly income for charity from farming produces, for example.
These rectangular structures namely Mustatil (rectangle) are very common (over 1000 of them) in built in ancient Arabia and they probably also being used for religious offerings [1]. The location are normally on top of the hills or elavated places similar to this.
Fun facts, Abrahamic religions have common rectangular religious structures. The Kaaba in Mecca was originally in rectangular shape before taking the modern square footprint or iconic cube structure [2]. According to Islamic tradition it's believe to be the first house of worship ever being built in the world by Adam. It's later reconstructed and renovated by Abraham and his son Ishmael.
The ancient Jews during Moses time also has rectangular portable worship structure so-called Tabernacle containing the infamous Ark of the Covenant [3].
Recently in 2025 a unique, 2,800-year-old First Temple-period cultic structure, featuring a 220-square-meter rectangular area, was discovered on the eastern slope of the City of David in Jerusalem. This site includes a ritual altar, a standing stone (masseba), a winepress, and an oil press, indicating significant ritual activity.
It would make sense that the holes were a convenient way of thinking and speaking about large quantities of goods such that tribes of people might want to exchange. It would be a very visual way of comparing dissimilar goods, like "1 hole has 50 alpaca skins and I need 200 for the shelter I'm planning to build, so I need 4" and "1 hole has 8 baskets of dried fish which can last 3 families thru the winter, so I need 3 for the nine families on the farm", etc.
And I bet they paid a bit of rent for the privilege. Pretty cool.
I think you are in error to assume that the financialisation of property we have in our culture is a natural state everywhere at all times, and that it would have inevitably also applied to historical cultures.
"Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall"
Peru is a marvelous country, and one of the greatest trip destinations in the world. A travel guide described Peru as the Egypt of the Americas. I went there just knowing about the Incas, but they one just one among dozens of civilizations. It blows your mind.
The greatest sadness is to see the amount of wonders destroyed by the Spanish invaders.
Somewhat tangentially related, it always pains me to think of the fact that 1000s of ancient temples in India were destroyed by the Mughals. If the ones left behind are anything to go by, it’s a tremendous loss.
Agreed. I just traveled to Peru for the first time a few months ago and visited Cusco for 7 days. For me, it was not enough, since all I wanted to do was go back immediately upon leaving. I'm normally the kinda person that wants to travel to as many new places as possible, but Peru was different. I can easily say I want to go back there at least 5 more times in my life.
Reflecting on it when I got home, I couldn't understand what made me not decide to go earlier in my life. I had Machu Picchu at the top of my bucket list since childhood as I'm sure many do, but it was never at the top for some reason. That was such a big mistake and I wish I went to Peru a long time ago, there's no other place like it, and it only gets harder to travel there the older you get since the altitude is rough. The number of elderly and retired people I saw struggling in Cusco from altitude sickness was too high. I heard a horror story of someone needing to spend a week in the hospital and unable to see a single site.
If they are similar to khipus (used for accounting) perhaps we're looking at the invention of a central bank.
Think about it, the village has a hard year, so they collectively borrow grain from another village. How do you settle disputes about exactly how much was borrowed? You build a big thing on the edge of town that everyone can see and can't destroy without a bunch of effort.
I'm just not sure if the relationship between the holes, the ridgeline, and prevailing winds (rain) line up for this being a water harvesting solution. But it's clear that in several sections they've done this on all of the terrain that's walkable on some of those hills, and I know walking ridgetops is often a solution to get through rocky or desert areas.
Kinda sad that this was done less than 1000 years ago at presumably great human efforts, yet we have forgotten why we even did it.
Lack of record keeping is the key problem.
Will someone 1000 years from now know what you spent your lifetime working on? Will your lifetimes work also be a mystery to future generations and will they shrug and say "all this computer code must be for religious sacrifice, we can see no other purposes for it"?
Is there any way we can make the current era of humanity the 'well documented one', for example by etching all our digital data into diamonds to last millions of years?
What if some of these ancient mysteries simply weren't logical. Investigations always assume that there was some very rational reason but still in our modern society we have exuberance and economic bubbles. The phenomenon is well-documented. What if it was something like that? The hole digging just got out-of-control?
35 comments
[ 134 ms ] story [ 1153 ms ] threadhttps://imgur.com/gallery/lni-enigma-of-amigara-fault-junji-...
https://newatlas.com/environment/5-200-holes-peruvian-mounta...
My initial thought was these were probably “drilled out” probably with an animal walking in circles, almost like a horse walker but with a drill bit attachment
Unless you want more favorable conditions for long term storing, or in case a enemy comes and blunders what is easily avaiable at the bottom of the hill.
It’s exactly what frustrates me so much about supposed “scientists” like the one quoted in the article; they say “we don’t know what something is for” then these “scientists” offer and apply all kinds of fanciful imaginative purposes and state them with authority that people accept.
I think it should be professionally disqualifying for scientists to propose any kind of theory or fanciful and imaginative purpose unless there has been rigorous debate and there is a solid theory backed by multiple points of evidence. Making unverifiable claims based on internal imagination and biases does not help and can even cause corruption of science, as I know for a fact happens.
You only have to hear “scientists” with PhDs openly say variations of the following most egregious example; “I just draw the graph and then look for the data to support it”, to know why sciences are so corrupted in many places.
I understand why people do it, especially if it’s your life, but science is largely about the disciplining human nature, something that seems to be crumbling and failing in many ways across many domains in the American empire.
I agreed there are for religious purposes but certainly not pointless for them.
My hypothesis is that it is for their offerings to God, perhaps a fraction from the population fresh produced. In religion like Islam you need to set aside 2.5% of yearly income for charity from farming produces, for example.
These rectangular structures namely Mustatil (rectangle) are very common (over 1000 of them) in built in ancient Arabia and they probably also being used for religious offerings [1]. The location are normally on top of the hills or elavated places similar to this.
Fun facts, Abrahamic religions have common rectangular religious structures. The Kaaba in Mecca was originally in rectangular shape before taking the modern square footprint or iconic cube structure [2]. According to Islamic tradition it's believe to be the first house of worship ever being built in the world by Adam. It's later reconstructed and renovated by Abraham and his son Ishmael.
The ancient Jews during Moses time also has rectangular portable worship structure so-called Tabernacle containing the infamous Ark of the Covenant [3].
Recently in 2025 a unique, 2,800-year-old First Temple-period cultic structure, featuring a 220-square-meter rectangular area, was discovered on the eastern slope of the City of David in Jerusalem. This site includes a ritual altar, a standing stone (masseba), a winepress, and an oil press, indicating significant ritual activity.
[1] Mustatil:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustatil
[2] Kaaba:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba
[3]Tabernacle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabernacle
[4] Unique structure used for ritual practices during the time of the First Temple discovered in the City of David:
https://www.gov.il/en/pages/first-temple-period-structure-us...
And I bet they paid a bit of rent for the privilege. Pretty cool.
Is property on your mind?
I think you are in error to assume that the financialisation of property we have in our culture is a natural state everywhere at all times, and that it would have inevitably also applied to historical cultures.
"Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire And though the holes were rather small They had to count them all Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall"
The greatest sadness is to see the amount of wonders destroyed by the Spanish invaders.
Reflecting on it when I got home, I couldn't understand what made me not decide to go earlier in my life. I had Machu Picchu at the top of my bucket list since childhood as I'm sure many do, but it was never at the top for some reason. That was such a big mistake and I wish I went to Peru a long time ago, there's no other place like it, and it only gets harder to travel there the older you get since the altitude is rough. The number of elderly and retired people I saw struggling in Cusco from altitude sickness was too high. I heard a horror story of someone needing to spend a week in the hospital and unable to see a single site.
Think about it, the village has a hard year, so they collectively borrow grain from another village. How do you settle disputes about exactly how much was borrowed? You build a big thing on the edge of town that everyone can see and can't destroy without a bunch of effort.
Archeologist from the future: WTF is a 'labubu'?
# They had to count them all
# now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Haaaalllll
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Band+of+Holes/@-13.7072611...
Not sure about the content, but this one has the best pictures:
https://www.upworthy.com/forgotten-half-moon-water-harvestin...
I'm just not sure if the relationship between the holes, the ridgeline, and prevailing winds (rain) line up for this being a water harvesting solution. But it's clear that in several sections they've done this on all of the terrain that's walkable on some of those hills, and I know walking ridgetops is often a solution to get through rocky or desert areas.
Lack of record keeping is the key problem.
Will someone 1000 years from now know what you spent your lifetime working on? Will your lifetimes work also be a mystery to future generations and will they shrug and say "all this computer code must be for religious sacrifice, we can see no other purposes for it"?
Is there any way we can make the current era of humanity the 'well documented one', for example by etching all our digital data into diamonds to last millions of years?
I would like to see something about the wider geography of the area.