Machu Picchu: the families and guides on the ridge in 1911
On July 24, 1911, Hiram Bingham climbed toward Machu Picchu with knowledge supplied by people already living around it. Farmer Melchor Arteaga guided the ascent from the Urubamba valley; Sergeant Carrasco accompanied Bingham; a child later showed him the buildings beyond the cultivated terraces. The ridge contained ancient Inca masonry and working farms. Bingham's arrival brought these places into a new circle of surveys, photographs and international publicity, while the residents were already using the land for their livelihoods.
The path to Machu Picchu began near Bingham's camp at Mandor Pampa. Arteaga had told him about ruins above the valley, but rain made the proposed climb unattractive. Bingham offered a sol for guiding him, and Arteaga agreed. They crossed the river on logs bound with vines and climbed a steep slope, with a Peruvian soldier accompanying the visitor. Around noon, a farming family welcomed them with water in gourds and boiled sweet potatoes. The practical route into the ruins passed through a household, a meal and an established mountain path.
Richarte and Alvarez were among the farmers Bingham met. Richarte told him that they had lived there for four years. Some ancient terraces had been cleared for crops, while forest still covered many buildings. Bingham described maize, potatoes, beans, peppers and other plants growing on the reclaimed ground. The families had initially used ancient houses with replacement roofs, but moved into their own thatched huts nearer springs. Access to water helped determine where they lived within a landscape shaped centuries earlier for cultivation and settlement.
These households occupied land within a larger system of ownership. Historian José Carlos de la Puente Luna, writing for Peru's Pontifical Catholic University, identifies the Richarte, Alvarez and Fuentes families as farmers at Machu Picchu. The terraces offered room for potatoes, sugar cane, cassava, sweet potatoes and maize. Richarte and Alvarez paid twelve soles annually for their use of the houses and terraces, and performed labor for the estate. The surrounding Sillque property had passed to the Ferro Vizcarra family in 1910. Remote cultivation still involved rent, work obligations and landlords.
The families' paths also connected the ridge to the valley. De la Puente describes their use of both the route Bingham followed and a steeper northern approach. Bingham's 1913 description likewise credited the resident families with a path incorporating ladders of vines and tree trunks. The cliffs made movement demanding, but the settlement was connected to people and commerce below. Clearing land, maintaining access and growing food were activities already underway when the expedition arrived.
Arteaga rested with the farmers while a small boy guided Bingham farther along the ridge. Beyond the cultivated terraces, the visitor encountered granite buildings under trees, moss and tangled vegetation. Carefully fitted stonework and buildings with windows caught his attention. The difference between a cleared field and a forest-covered building could be only a short walk. This was a cultivated and overgrown landscape at the same time, with the boy's local knowledge providing the final connection between the farmhouse and the monumental structures.
There were signs of earlier visitors, too. Bingham reported an inscription recording Lizarraga's presence in 1902. Lizarraga leased land immediately below the San Miguel bridge.
Bingham's initial interpretations remained unsettled. He was searching for Vitcos and Vilcabamba, places associated with the last Inca rulers resisting Spanish conquest. Historian Christopher Heaney traces how Bingham went on that summer to Vitcos and Espiritu Pampa, now identified with Vilcabamba. Reaching those places did not prevent him from later assigning Vilcabamba's identity to Machu Picchu. In 1913 he also connected the building with three conspicuous windows to Tampu Tocco, a place in Inca origin traditions. Recognition of impressive ruins came before a dependable identification of their historical purpose.
Modern archaeological work instead places the complex among Inca royal estates and associates it with Emperor Pachacuti. A Yale-led radiocarbon study published in 2021 dated human remains from the site and estimated occupation from about 1420 to 1530. The sampled individuals likely included attendants assigned to the estate. Their remains showed little evidence of heavy construction labor, supporting an association with the palace's functioning community. This interpretation situates the monumental buildings in the imperial period, rather than making them the final rebel capital Bingham had hoped to locate.
Public recognition also developed through further work after the first visit. Bingham sent H. L. Tucker and Paul Baxter Lanius to map and partially clear the ruins in 1911. Yale and the National Geographic Society supported the larger expedition of 1912, and the magazine devoted its April 1913 issue to the work. The same publication described resident families raising crops on fertile terraces and struggling against fast-growing vegetation. International attention expanded through the expedition's images and surveys, while the farmers continued the cultivation that had brought them to the ridge before Bingham.
- Hiram Bingham, Inca Land (1922), Chapters XVII–XVIII; Project Gutenberg — www.gutenberg.org
- Hiram Bingham, National Geographic, In the Wonderland of Peru (April 1913; digital reprint) — www.nationalgeographic.com
- José Carlos de la Puente Luna, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, ¿Quién recibió a Hiram Bingham en Machu Picchu? — puntoedu.pucp.edu.pe
- Christopher Heaney interview, National Geographic, Finding Machu Picchu — www.nationalgeographic.com
- Mike Cummings, Yale News, Machu Picchu Older Than Expected, Study Reveals — news.yale.edu
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu — whc.unesco.org