Exotic and Historic Travel

The city has a population of about 300,000, triple the population it contained just 20 years ago. The altitude of the city, located on the eastern end of the Knot of Cuzco, is around 3,500 m (11,500 feet).

The historic capital of the sun-worshipping Inca empire, it has been found in 2006 to be the spot on Earth with the highest UV level.

It still remains in the past’s obscurity the conditions and date when man began inhabiting this continent. However, the most accepted version says that the American man came from the Asian Continent and that taking advantage of the ocean freeze in the Bering Strait could cross to this side of the world. According to archaeology the Nevada Man in present day USA, must have lived about 30 to 50 thousand years ago. In the case of Peru, in 1969 Mac Neish revealed the oldest dates for the first Peruvians: 18 to 20 thousand years B.C. for the Pacaicasa Man around Ayacucho. That age is beyond the logical sphere because it was determined using the absolute date technique of Radiocarbon or Carbon 14. Since that remote time man moved himself through different spots in the Peruvian Andes. In the Qosqo region there were some pre-ceramic settlements, thus the oldest ones and still gatherers were the Men of Yauri and Chumbivilcas with an approximate age of 5 thousand years B.C. Later we had the shepherds of the Canas and Chawaytiri areas and even later as farmers the Men of Qorqa. It is in the Formative period when man appeared in the Watanay Valley (Qosqo Valley). The oldest sedentary settlement in a first phase in this valley was begun in Marcavalle on the eastern part of the present-day city with a relatively organized population of farmers and shepherds using pottery approximately since 1,000 B.C. Organized life in Qosqo City began practically with them. Today Qosqo City is considered the oldest living city in the American Continent with a continuous occupation of about 3,000 years until today. Read the rest of this entry »