yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

See How Ancient Past and Present Meet in This Coastal Town | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

(soft music)

[Gabriel] This is Huanchaco. This is my hometown. Huanchaco is a small fishing village that is north of the city of Trujillo, and it's a very rich place in archaeological sites. There has been a continuous occupation in this area for more than 3500 years. Local fishermen are still fishing in the traditional ways, using reed boats, so it's really something that has that magic sense for this town.

One of the problems we have in Huanchaco is that we are losing that traditional knowledge. If we lose these sites, you will never learn what happened three thousand years ago. I think that when I was already seven or eight, I was very sure that I wanted to be an archaeologist. It was really a very unique time. You play with your friends on the beach, you help the fishermen, you just spend time walking around archaeological sites.

We are currently working at seven sites in the Huanchaco area, and the main goal of this project is to learn more about how these common people built up as a society and transformed over the years. When you learn about Peru, you always hear about Machu Picchu or the Nazca Lines. That's very important, but we want to learn not in the big temples; we want to learn what happened in the small house. You get a big picture of how society worked, and that's what we want to do.

One of the problems we have is urban expansion, which is really destroying many sites, and one of our goals is actually to protect and to study the sites before they get destroyed. One of my dreams is to have people from Huanchaco becoming archaeologists and working in the area, getting them involved, giving job opportunities, but at the same time, feeding their own identity, their own cultural background.

It opens also an opportunity for local people to learn that protecting archaeological sites is very important. Coming back to a place like Huanchaco and working here is, for me, like returning the favor. We need spaces for people to learn more about their own past. The real importance of these small sites is that we can link the past with the present.

We can really tell, you know, you are not only just a fisherman; you're a person living in that site that has more than three thousand years of cultural continuity. That makes you very unique in this world. (soft music)

More Articles

View All
WATCH NFTs with Tom Segura
You can create the zero zero one and ft, which authenticates your piece. But then you authorize another ten, and you let me buy one of those so I can actually own an image—the real thing, the one-of-a-kind dial to create watch NFTs. [Music] All right, l…
The Ripple Effect – Ep. 3 | National Geographic Presents: IMPACT With Gal Gadot
GAL: “People aren’t statistics.” 19-year-old Arianna said this when she lived through one of the worst natural disasters in Puerto Rico’s history, leaving her friends, family and neighbors without access to clean water. Seeing how deeply real lives have …
Biosecurity Nightmare | To Catch a Smuggler: South Pacific | National Geographic
Auckland International Airport welcomes over 350,000 visitors from the USA every year. Many bring dreams of a wonderful holiday, but this woman has brought a biosecurity nightmare. “I’ve just seen the most incredible thing, a cat.” And the lady says, “It…
Always investigate the airplane’s history before making a purchase.
One thing, when we’re selling an airplane, people always need to know what’s the history of the airplane. How do we know that the maintenance is correct, the pedigree is correct? How it’s been maintained or where it’s lived, location, or in a hangar? We …
Intro to radioactive decay | Physics | Khan Academy
What comes to your mind when you hear the word radioactive? Well, for me, it was this danger, right? But in this video, we’re going to try to understand what exactly is radioactive or what does it mean and why is it so dangerous and how can the same thing…
The Benefits of Social Isolation
“There are days when solitude is heady wine that intoxicates you, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.” — Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette Imagine that you have to spend a long ti…