Archaeologists Finally Know Who Made Peru’s Thousands of Aligned Holes

For nearly a century, thousands of holes cut into a Peruvian hillside have looked like a message without a key. They stretch across the desert in ordered rows, too deliberate to ignore and too strange to explain easily.

Now, archaeologists think the pattern may finally make sense. The site is known as Monte Sierpe, or the Band of Holes, in Peru’s Pisco Valley.

New research suggests the holes were likely created by the Chincha people around 1,000 years ago, then later reused by the Inca Empire as a system for organizing goods, tribute, and accounting.