Combating Illegal Excavations in Cahuachi: Ancient Problems and Modern Technologies

Abstract

Illegal excavations represent one of the main risk factors which affect the archaeological heritage in Peru, in general, and in Nasca region, in particular. Looting in Peru has an ancient “tradition”, starting from the Spanish Conquistadors (and before); but since the 1960s, it has been strongly intensifying to supply the growing national and international markets. After the famous plundering of Sipan, an agreement was reached with the United States in 1997 to restrict the import of Pre-Columbian and ethnographic material from Peru. But, unfortunately, since the signing of the bilateral agreements with the United States, the traffic has shifted and been directed more towards Northern and Central Europe. Steps were taken to prevent illegal excavations through the forced return of looted archaeological objects; but this only partially addressed the problem because, even if the objects have been returned, the archaeological context from which they were stolen cannot be recovered. To stop, or at least limit, the illicit trade, it would be necessary to improve the present national and international laws and make available the resources necessary for their enforcement and for a wider understanding and systematic monitoring of the archaeological areas by using effective techniques of surveillance, including remote sensing. This chapter deals with the results obtained by using an automatic procedure applied to multitemporal satellite images of some areas in the Rio Grande de Nasca Drainage for the detection of looted areas. The rate of success in detecting changes related to the archaeological looting has been successfully tested in significant selected areas using complementary tools such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV ), a Global Positioning System (GPS ), Ground-penetrating radar (GPR ), and field surveys . Satellite technologies can provide reliable information: (i) to quantify the looting phenomenon even if it is on an “industrial scale” over large areas, and (ii) to set up a systematic monitoring tool to trace the illicit trade in antiquities. This study has implications for the protection of archaeological sites, not only in Nasca but also across the world.