Jo Osborn / Emily Milton / Jacob L. Bongers / The Conversation In 1532, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and a group of Europeans took the Inca ruler Atahualpa hostage, setting the stage for the fall of the Inca Empire. Before this fateful attack, Pizarro’s brother, Pedro Pizarro, made a curious observation: other than the Inca himself, the Lord of Chincha was the only person at Cajamarca carried on a litter, a carrying platform. Why did the Lord of Chincha occupy such a high position in Inca society? In our new study published in PLOS One, we find evidence for a surprising potential source of power and influence: bird poo. Finding Francisco Pizzaro: The Strange
