UNREGISTERED Megalithic Site in Peru | First-Ever Documentation

Look at this. This site is not registered with the Ministry of Culture yet. Unbelievable. These are stairs leading here. Look how buried this is. Increible. This site has not been excavated at all. Welcome to Pillars of the Past. So this all started when I saw a post in an archaeological group on Facebook. There were pictures of a site I had never seen before and it had what appeared to be megalithic architecture. This was the only, and I mean only, documentation of this site in existence. And I know that because I scoured Google Earth from putting together context clues from the post and I found what I believe is the archaeological site. So I cross-referenced it with Peru's database of ancient archaeological sites and as you can see, it's not identified. And just for reference, when you use the database, this is what archaeological sites look like that have been identified. So now that I knew where it was, the issue was trying to get there and I could not find a viable path. So I reached out to one of the people the post said was responsible for taking these pictures. And I was able to get in touch with Romulo, who said if I made it to Juanuco, he would take me to the site. And that, well that was a journey in and of itself. Exactly what I did not want to happen. It is going to be pitch black soon and these roads, it's half mud, half like just terrible. Absolutely terrible. I mean you can't see the side of the road but you know a cliff is there. Fortunately, there's a car in front of me and I keep trying to stay behind him to see his tail lights so I know which path to go. Fortunately, I made it through that nightmare and I was able to meet Romulo, who it turns out has a much deeper connection to this place than I had previously known. Where do we park? Wait for me here. Wait. We parked there. There. We parked there. Let's walk. This is unreal. I was right. This site we're going to, it is not registered with the Ministry of Culture. The townspeople have been trying to get the Ministry of Culture to come give attention to it. It's megalithic. It's in the middle of the Ancash region. Difficult as hell to get to. This morning, we set out on this excursion to come document the site. Do you remember the way? Yes, I have walked. Not much, but from here you get in touch with other towns. Yes. To both. You can get your products here. Yes. This is unreal. The townspeople don't know me. They don't know you? They don't know me. I am one of the people who posted on my Facebook that I was the director of the National Institute of Culture. And what did you say? He has taken charge in Guanuco. He is from Chaolan. And in my post, he comments that he is abandoned due to lack of authority. And you want the attention of the Ministry of Culture, right? Of course. He has taken over. It's okay. I will take care of it. Thank you. When we return. Why did you find this location? I... What are you doing? I came to visit. And then I had to walk to another town. Because there is no road. So in that way I found El Potrero. Wow. You have to take something out. I will carry it. Yes? Do you want that? No, it's not okay. So Romulo was kind enough to carry my bag. He insisted. This is incredible. Look, this is a road. Here? Yes. Look at the... These are stairs. These are stairs leading here. They carry their products, dogs, and animals. On the back of the animals. Incredible. This is unreal. There are people there. Yes, it seems that some students have come to visit you. Students of what? Of a school. They have come to this area. So some of the townspeople come and visit. Before, no. It seems that now... They already know. Who gives the name of this place? The townspeople. The townspeople of Rangas. They already know how it was before. What does it mean? It means... Suddenly, it was a place like a collection center. Suddenly, the products were brought Like a collection center. Look at this. Good morning. This is the first of three distinct and separate construction methods I believe are present here at the site. It doesn't close there. But I think it was there. This looks like a channel here. For water. Look at this. Megalithic stairs here. This site has not been excavated at all. I believe the megalithic construction here was likely the principal or central structure when it was first occupied. This is megalithic construction. And it's old. It's old. Look at that. They used to cut the stones. There's a position in which there's an Akaklui. Akaklui is a bird. Akaklui? Yes, it's a bird. It's the only bird that suddenly meets a plant. The plant. Something that suddenly puts its legs and takes advantage of this hole. And suddenly the Incas also knew this plant. They took advantage of that to carve their stones. How were they supposed to carve their stones? At that time there was no zinc. There was no iron. Nothing. I got excited when Romulo began talking about the bird and the plant as it's a story I'm very familiar with. And it is almost verbatim with what explorers like Percy Fawcett and some of the Spanish chroniclers wrote in their accounts. It says go further down. And this goes further too, you can see. It almost seems like some of the construction here got shaken up and the stones got disassembled. As you can see these filler stones placed in some of the gaps. Kind of like what you see in Cusco. Look at this. Oh, wow! Si, si, si. Oh, look at this. Which adds another layer of construction to things. This time by the Spanish because these types of constructions were not being built by the people of the Andes. Look at this. This site is not registered with the Ministry of Culture yet. Unbelievable. Si. Look at this in the middle. Si. Si, si. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Getting to El Potrero was no picnic, but the effort was rewarded with incredible beauty, with friendship and the only video footage that exists of this ancient site. Huge, huge thanks to Romulo for his unbelievable insights, for his desire to have this place recognized, and above all else, for taking the time to take me there. It's hard to believe that this site still remains unregistered, unrecognized, not a survey or anything. You can cross-reference that. So if there's anyone from the Ministry of Culture watching or if you know anybody, maybe send this video to them and something can be done. It's clearly worthy of investigation, excavation, and definitely deserves to be placed on the official registry of archaeological sites. I will say that the feeling I got from this site was that it was eventually completely abandoned and taken over by the Spanish. I mean, I don't think anybody was living there or staying there for any sort of extended period of time. I didn't find a single pottery shirt at this location, and that's pretty abnormal. But then again, there were several places at this site where it was pretty clear that there's architecture buried under the surface, so who knows, if archaeologists make it out there and find artifacts or remains, we might be able to get some dates on when it was first occupied. I also have to take a moment to just thank Romulo once again because this excursion to this particular site, well, it fulfilled a personal dream of mine, which was to document an unregistered megalithic site, and thank you, Romulo. But also, thank you to all of you who are watching this because you helped make it happen. Without your support, without people donating to the GoFundMe, without the encouragement, this wouldn't have happened. And just thank you. I'm just glad I get to share it with all of you. And I just want to let you know that I appreciate it. There is so much more to come, and I can't wait to show you the variety of things that I experienced on this trip. Stay tuned. Welcome to the channel. If you're new, hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. I'll catch you in the next video.