The Fortress of La Meseta

“Yea, he [Moroni] had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort…and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land…and in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men; and thus he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites” (Alma 48:8-9)

On the heavily forested eastern slopes of the Andes, in the lower mountain cloud forest at 6500 feet elevation, Peruvian farmers have discovered a massive ruin called La Meseta (meaning plateau or tableland), built of pirca cut stone. Consisting of a ceremonial platform 100 feet x 200 feet x 24 feet that overlooks a plaza, itself, approximately 200 feet x 300 feet, as well as numerous rectangular and circular buildings. First discovered by local pioneers, Octavio, Merlin and Edison Añazco, the site was nicknamed the "Huaca La Penitenciaría" (Penitentiary Ruin) because of its vast, impenetrable and impregnable appearance. Perched on the hillside, the fortress has an unending view of approaches into the basin in which it is located.

La Meseta, is nicknamed Huaca La Penitenciaria, or Penitentiary Ruins, because of its fortified, block-like appearance

The ruins sit on a plateau called La Meseta between the Rio Verde and Rio Huabayacu, and are heavily overgrown by the cloud forest, complete with spider monkeys as well as jaguars and other nocturnal predators. In front of the platform on which the ruins sit, is a large plaza, approximately 200 feet wide and 300 feet long. The top of the platform bears the remains of several square and round buildings and what appears to be a watchtower. It is estimated that 98% of the ruin is heavily overgrown with trees, vines and moss, and because of its unprecedented form, size, and the remoteness of the area in which it was found has elicited much interest among archaeologists who are trying to piece together who built this fortress.

The large frieze across its front is the signature of the Chachapoyas—the Cloud People of ancient Peru and who had built mountain top fortresses to the west, but had not been believed to have traveled this far east.

La Meseta was built on a plateau in otherwise mountainous territory, between the Río Verde (also known as Río Chilchos) and Río Huabayacu, both tributaries of the Río Huallabamba, in the Department of San Martín, Peru. The village of La Morada, an annex of Chuquibamba, Chachapoyas, Amazonas, is two days on foot or by mule from La Meseta.

News of their discovery was relayed by the discoverers to explorer, archaeologist, and assistant dean at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Keith Muscutt who, guided by the Añazcos, arrived at the site and made a preliminary survey of it in August of 2006. "This is an exciting development for Chachapoya archaeology. The main building is a stepped, rectangular structure made up of three tiers. This building is about two-hundred feet long, a hundred feet wide, twenty-four feet high, and oriented to the cardinal points of the compass. As far as I can tell, apart from some drainage shafts, it's completely solid. I imagine it served as a ceremonial platform -- a stage for Chachapoya rituals," said Muscutt.

The unusual conjunction of traits, as well as its location at a lower elevation and much further east than the Chachapoya empire was previously known to sprawl, hint that it might have been built by forced Chachapoya labor,” said Keith Muscutt, a Chachapoya expert who described the find this month at a meeting in San Francisco of the Institute for Andean Studies. On the other hand, since it fits the design style in many ways, but not the location of the Chachapoya, perhaps, as has been stated here before, that the Chachapoya merely occupied the site, or some other nartive group. The site itself may well have been built long before the Chachapoya.

The problem is with archaeologists, they have labeled this northern area as part of the so-called Chachapoya Empire, therefore, anything found there had to have been built by the Chachapoya. And, as in the case of La Meseta, it is lower and beyond the Chachapoya realm, there had to be a reason why the Chachapoya was involved, etc.

As archaeologist Warren Church of Columbus State University in Georgia, said, "We are dealing with a startlingly large, functionally specialized structure that we do not understand at all. It is enormous, and to find it where we find it is really strange." But strange or not, it is given a label, made part of a previously not understood culture, and reasons for its existence and location are decided upon.

According to archaeologists: “For at least 600 years, until the late 15th century, the Chachapoyas amassed an extensive empire in the high Andes, building large cities, controlling complex trading routes and practicing a little-understood form of shamanism. They tell us that “Nobody knows where the Chachapoyas came from, but starting about 1,300 years ago, they began to spread through an area known as the Ceja de Selva, or Eyebrow of the Jungle, reaching a population of about 500,000. They are renowned for their mountaintop citadels, such as Kuelap and Gran Pajaten.”

But while Penitentiary Ruin seems to have been topped by a plaza and other buildings, including a lookout tower, high wall, and easily defendable position, it seemed surprisingly unfortified to Muscutt. Yet, he could find no opening into the structure other than drains. In addition, the building is so well fortified within that it has not been affected by the numerous earthquakes that have hit the area over the centuries.

The interesting thing is, though all the archaeologists claim the Chachapoya date back to only about 800 A.D. at the earliest, and 1200 A.D. at the latest, the so-called Chachapoya fortresses and structures date to a much earlier period, radiocarbon dated to 200 B.C.