Gran Pajáten
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gran Pajáten is an archaological site located in the Andean cloud forests of Peru, on the border of the La Libertad region and the San Martín region, between the cities of Cajamarca and Chachapoyas. The archaeological site lies in the Rio Abiseo National Park, which was established in 1982. The park was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In order to protect the fragile ruins and endangered environment, the archaeological site and the national park are currently not open to major tourism, although hiking is permitted.
Gran Pajáten sits on a hilltop, and consists of a series of at least 26 circular stone structures surrounded by numerous terraces, slate pavers and stairways. The ruins occupy an area of about 20,000 m². The buildings are decorated with slate mosaics displaying bird and human motifs. The area may have been occupied as early as the year 200 BCE. It is thought to have been one of seven major settlements of the Chachapoyas culture. However, the building ruins that occupy the present site were built during Inca times [1].
Explorer Gene Savoy is erroneously credited with having found the ruins in 1965. After discovery of the site by inhabitants of the town of Pataz, Savoy named the site and publicized information about its discovery. By 1966, the Peruvian government had set up a helicopter pad and cleared much of the protective vegetation that surrounded the site. These actions raised criticism due to the delicate nature of the archaeological site. Without the protection of dense vegetation, the stone ruins began to rapidly deteriorate [2].
In 1984, a team led by the archaeology department at University of Colorado began a major research project at Gran Pajáten. The "rediscovery" of Gran Pajáten was widely publicized, and this second large-scale expedition led to further discussions of opening the site up to tourism. An expedition in 1990 once again cleared the protective vegetation from the site, and further damaged the ruins. Currently, there are plans for construction of several roads and a tourist hotel in the region. Neither have been implemented due to the fragile nature of the ruins, and the high cost of conserving the site and minimizing tourist impacts on its archaeological integrity and environmental context.
