USF’s Charles Stanish was part of a team that used scientific evidence to reinterpret the site of Monte Sierpe in the Peruvian Andes, which has a mysterious 1.5-kilometer line of more than 5,200 evenly spaced pits, each one to two meters wide and up to a meter deep. “The Band of Holes has long been prominent in the pseudo-archaeology world, with rampant speculation and mischaracterization of the data on the ground,” says Stanish.

The team examined sediment from the holes and found traces of crops such as maize and wild plants traditionally used for weaving and packaging goods. They also used drones to capture high-resolution aerial images, revealing patterns in how the holes were organized. The data show the holes are not random or decorative but organized in deliberate blocks that may have represented quantities of stored goods or tallied exchanges between communities--a system of accounting.

• Charles Stanish