DNA analysis of the descendants of the last rulers of the Inca empire showed that the ancestors of the legendary Huayna Kapaca and other "sons of the Sun" lived in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, as the legends of the Indians tell about it, according to an article published in the journal Molecular Genetics and Genomics.
“Sometimes genetics allows us to discover what was erased from the pages of history, or distorted in subsequent eras. We managed to reveal only a small part of the secrets of this amazing civilization. If we can find the mummy of at least one of the rulers of the empire, we will learn much more about where and how the first Incas appeared,”says Ricardo Fujita of the University of Lima, Peru.
The Inca Empire was the largest and most powerful state in the New World before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, covering the territory that today is occupied by Peru, large regions of Chile and Ecuador, as well as small corners of Argentina and Bolivia. It emerged around the beginning of the 13th century, and in just 200 years it covered a huge area and about 10 million people.
The Inca state is interesting from a historical point of view in that it did not have the typical features of all ancient and modern empires of the Old World - the Incas did not have the usual writing, code of laws, currency, metallurgy and counting systems, as well as "classical" feudal or despotic relations between the supreme rulers and their subjects.
The absence of writing and the destruction of all Inca mummies by the Spaniards, as Fujita explains, gave rise to one of the most interesting and not yet solved mysteries in the history of this unusual federal state. We still do not know the homeland of these Indians and where the first "sons of the Sun", the Inca emperors, lived.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that among the descendants of the Incas, there are two different legends describing how their civilization arose. One of which places the homeland of the first rulers of the empire on the shores of the distant Lake Titicaca, and the other - a few tens of kilometers south of Cuzco, the former capital of the empire, on the border of Bolivia and Peru.
Fujita and his colleagues tried to find an answer to this question by deciphering the DNA of several dozen modern Peruvians who consider themselves descendants of the "sons of the Sun", after selecting from them those whose names are found in the Spanish chronicles.
In total, scientists managed to find 19 descendants of the legendary Huayna Kapak and other "sons of the Sun", and decipher their Y-chromosome - a small part of DNA that is transmitted only through the paternal line. By comparing the sets of small mutations in it, one can reveal the pedigree of its owners and determine where their ancestors might have lived.
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The results of this comparison surprised scientists somewhat. It turned out that the relatives of the rulers of the empire could be divided into two groups, one of which was close in the structure of the Y-chromosome to the Aymara Indians living near the shores of Lake Titicaca, and the second to the inhabitants of the Pakariktampu region, located near this reservoir. The common ancestor of the first group of descendants of the Inca rulers lived on Earth about 540 years ago, and the second - about 900 years ago.
This position of the alleged ancestral homelands of the rulers of the empire, according to Fujita, fits well with what the Inca legends say. In his opinion, the Incas did not "move" to Cuzco immediately, but moved towards the future capital gradually, stopping for some time in Pacariktampa. This explains the discrepancies between the legends and explains why they arose in different eras of the empire.
All these ideas, according to the geneticist, can be tested if the Peruvian government allows excavations on the territory of the Cathedral of St. Cristobal in Cusco, under which the remains of Paullo Inca, one of the sons of Huayna Capac, are supposedly buried.