Page 97 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

today staples such as maize cannot ripen properly and even potatoes
come out of the ground stunted.
14
Although it was difficult to piece together all the different elements of
the complex chain of events that had occurred, it seemed that ‘a period
of calm had followed the critical moment of seismic disturbance’ which
had temporarily flooded Tiahuanaco. Then, slowly but surely, ‘the
15
climate worsened and became inclement. Finally there ensued mass
emigrations of the Andean peoples towards locations where the struggle
for life would not be so arduous.’
16
It seems that the highly civilized inhabitants of Tiahuanaco,
remembered in local traditions as ‘the Viracocha people’, had not gone
without a struggle. There was puzzling evidence from all over the
Altiplano that agricultural experiments of an advanced and scientific
nature had been carried out, with great ingenuity and dedication, to try to
compensate for the deterioration of the climate. For example, recent
research has demonstrated that astonishingly sophisticated analyses of
the chemical compositions of many poisonous high-altitude plants and
tubers had been undertaken by somebody in this region in the furthest
antiquity. Such analyses, furthermore, had been coupled with the
invention of detoxification techniques which had rendered these
otherwise nutritious vegetables harmless and edible. There was as yet
17
‘no satisfactory explanation for the development of these detoxification
processes’, admitted David Brow-man, associate professor of
Anthropology at Washington University.
18

14 Quoted in Earth in Upheaval, citing Sir Clemens Markham, pp. 75-6.
15 Tiahuanacu, III, p. 147.
16 Ibid.
17 David L. Browman, ‘New Light on Andean Tiahuanaco’, in American Scientist, volume
69, 1981, pp. 410-12.
18 Ibid., p. 410. According to Browman: ‘Plant domestication in the Altiplano required the
simultaneous development of detoxifying techniques. The majority of the plants [which
were in regular use in ancient Tiahuanaco] contain significant levels of toxins in an
untreated state. For example, the potato species that are most resistant to frost and that
grow best at high altitudes also contain the highest levels of glycoalkaloid solanine. In
addition, the potato contains an inhibitor for a wide range of digestive enzymes
necessary for breaking down proteins—a particularly unfortunate trait at high altitudes
where differential partial oxygen pressure already impairs the chemistry of protein
breakdown ...’
The detoxification technique developed at Tiahuanaco to make these potatoes edible
also had a preservative effect. Indeed, each of these two important qualities was a by-
product of the other. ‘Altiplano farmers’, explains Browman, ‘have, for several thousand
years produced the freeze-dried potato, or ch’uno, by a process of freezing, leaching,
and sun drying. The initial explanation for this process was that it produced a food
product that could be stored for long periods of time ... six years or more ... But we can
now suggest another rationale. Leaching and sun-drying are necessary to remove the
majority of the solanine and to lower excessive nitrate levels, and the subsequent
cooking of freeze-dried products destroys the inhibitors of digestive enzymes. Rather
than arguing that freeze-drying was motivated only by a desire to produce a secure food
base, one could hold that this technology was mandatory to make the potato available

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