Career
Born in Joliet, Illinois, Johan Reinhard lived in New Lenox, Illinois until 1962. He began his undergraduate studies at the University of Arizona, before going on to receive his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Vienna, Austria (1974). Much his current research focuses on the sacred beliefs and cultural practices of mountain peoples and in the preservation of their cultural patrimony, especially in the Andes and the Himalayas. His anthropological field research since 1980 has primarily focused on the Incas and sacred landscape in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.
During 1989–1992 he directed an underwater archaeological research project in Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake (12,500 ft), that resulted in the discovery of rare Inca and Tiahuanaco (pre-Inca) artifacts. He has lived more than ten years in the Himalayas, conducting anthropological research primarily in Nepal, [4] but he has also undertaken investigations in Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim, and the Garhwal Himalaya. [4]
His studies in Nepal included culture change among the Raji of nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled agriculturalists; Himalayan shamanism; the role of sacred mountains in Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism; the sacred "hidden lands" of Tibetan Buddhism (seven of which he has explored); and two of the world's last nomadic hunting and gathering tribes: the Raute and Kusunda. While in Nepal, he also directed Peace Corps Training Projects and was a member of teams that made some of the first rafting descents of Trisuli and Sun Kosi rivers. [4] Elsewhere in South Asia, in 1977 he studied Muslim fishermen in the Maldive Islands (Indian Ocean).
While living in Austria during 1972, he participated in an underwater archaeological study of a Neolithic site at Mondsee. In 1965 and 1967, he was also a member of teams which undertook nautical archaeological research of Roman shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea off southern Italy and of an Iron Age Villanovan village in a northern Italian lake (Lago di Bolsena) in 1965. His interest in the Iceman led to his study in recent years of the role of sacred landscape in Neolithic religion in the central Alps.
Johan first began mountain climbing in 1964 in the Alps and in the mid-1970s in the Himalayas, including participating on the successful 1976 American Everest Expedition and making a first ascent in 1979 of the South Face of Buni Zom (21,500 ft) in the Hindu Kush (Pakistan). His climbs in the Andes began in 1980 with ascents of mountains in Ecuador, and he eventually climbed the majority of Andean peaks over 6,500 m (21,325 feet)—several of them solo. A historian of Andean ascents for the American Alpine Club noted in the early 1990s that Johan had climbed more high-altitude Andean peaks (over 20,000 feet) than any other person.
While sky diving in the 1960s–1970s, Johan participated in 150 jumps in Europe and the US, including in snow, in water, at night, and in large free fall "stars," besides having made jumps with groups from over 20,000 feet in 1963— world records at the time. In 1979 he made one of the first crossings by a westerner of the Great Indian (Thar) Desert by camel, in 1980 one of the few land crossings of Tierra del Fuego in Chile, and in 1980 one of the few crossings of the Llanganatis mountain range in Ecuador to reach the Amazon.
Reinhard participated in underwater archaeological investigations of sacred lakes of the Incas, including in the crater lake of Licancabur in 1981–82 (the world's highest dive at 19,300 ft), and a lake at 19,100 ft on Paniri volcano in 1983. During 1987 and 2004, he dove in lower-lying lakes near Cuzco (including lakes Urcos, Huacarpay and Piuray), and in the highlands of Ecuador in 2009, while in 2007 and 2010 he was a member of teams that investigated sacred lakes of the Aztecs (13,800 ft) on Toluca volcano in Mexico and underwater archaeological sites in Lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan in 2010.
He has investigated traditional religious beliefs and climbed sacred mountains in Greece in 2002, in Bali, Indonesia during 2007, and in Venezuela, Mongolia, and the Holy Land (Israel) in 2012. He has served as a cinematographer for the BBC, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Scientific Film Institute of Germany, and his research has been featured in several TV documentaries, including National Geographic, BBC, NOVA, PBS, and Discovery. He is an avid photographer and his images have appeared in over a hundred newspapers, books and magazines, including National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, etc., and with thousands of these images available on his website.
He has lectured on cruise ships traveling in the Caribbean, along the Pacific coast of South America, and to Antarctica, the Galapagos, and Easter Island, and also lectured on round-the-world flights for the National Geographic Society. He speaks Spanish, Nepali, and German, and in Nepal he analyzed two unwritten languages: Raji, a Tibeto-Burman language, and Kusunda, a linguistic isolate.
Tiwanaku is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and include decorated ceramics, monumental structures, and megalithic blocks. In AD 800 the site has been conservatively estimated to have been inhabited by 10,000 to 20,000 people.
Momia Juanita, also known as the Lady of Ampato, is the well-preserved frozen body of a girl from the Inca Empire who was killed as a human sacrifice to the Inca gods sometime between 1440 and 1480, when she was approximately 12–15 years old. She was discovered on the dormant stratovolcano Mount Ampato in 1995 by anthropologist Johan Reinhard and his Peruvian climbing partner, Miguel Zárate. She is known as the Lady of Ampato because she was found on top of Mount Ampato. Her other nickname, the Ice Maiden, derives from the cold conditions and freezing temperatures that preserved her body on Mount Ampato.
The Inca religion was a group of beliefs and rites that were related to a mythological system evolving from pre-Inca times to Inca Empire. Faith in the Tawantinsuyu was manifested in every aspect of his life, work, festivities, ceremonies, etc. They were polytheists and there were local, regional and pan-regional divinities.
The practice of human sacrifice in pre-Colombian cultures, in particular Mesoamerican and South American cultures, is well documented both in the archaeological records and in written sources. The exact ideologies behind child sacrifice in different pre-Colombian cultures are unknown but it is often thought to have been performed to placate certain gods.
Isla del Sol is an island in the southern part of Lake Titicaca. It is part of Bolivia, and specifically part of the La Paz Department. Geographically, the terrain is harsh; it is a rocky, hilly island with many eucalyptus trees. There are no motor vehicles or paved roads on the island. The main economic activity of the approximately 800 families on the island is farming, with fishing and tourism augmenting the subsistence economy. Of the several villages, Yumani and Challapampa are the largest.
The Chakana is a stepped cross motif used by the Inca and pre-incan Andean societies. The most commonly used variation of this symbol today is made up of an equal-armed cross indicating the cardinal points of the compass and a superimposed square. Chakana means 'bridge', and means 'to cross over' in Quechua. The Andean cross motif appears in pre-contact artifacts such as textiles and ceramics from such cultures as the Chavín, Wari, Chancay, and Tiwanaku, but with no particular emphasis and no key or guide to a means of interpretation. The anthropologist Alan Kolata calls the Andean cross "one of the most ubiquitous, if least understood elements in Tiwanaku iconography". The Andean cross symbol has a long cultural tradition spanning 4,000 years up to the Inca Empire.
Capacocha or Qhapaq hucha was an important sacrificial rite among the Inca that typically involved the sacrifice of children. Children of both sexes were selected from across the Inca empire for sacrifice in capacocha ceremonies, which were performed at important shrines distributed across the empire, known as huacas, or wak'akuna.
Salcantay, Salkantay or Sallqantay is the highest peak in the Vilcabamba mountain range, part of the Peruvian Andes. It is located in the Cusco Region, about 60 km (40 mi) west-northwest of the city of Cusco. It is the 38th-highest peak in the Andes and the twelfth-highest in Peru. However, as a range highpoint in deeply incised terrain, it is the second most topographically prominent peak in the country, after Huascarán.
The Gate of the Sun, also known as the Gateway of the Sun (in older literature simply called " monolithic Gateway of Ak-kapana", is a monolithic gateway at the site of Tiahuanaco by the Tiwanaku culture, an Andean civilization of Bolivia that thrived around Lake Titicaca in the Andes of western South America around 500-950 AD.
Gloria Lisé is an Argentinian writer, playwright, lawyer, professor, and an accomplished musician. She is the author of Con los Pies en el Escenario: Trayectoria del Grupo Arte Dramático y su Director Salo Lisé (2003), a book based on the life of her father, the novel Viene Clareando (2005), which was chosen by Argentina’s National Commission for the Protection of Public Libraries for distribution to the country’s public libraries, and Paisaje de Final de Época, 2012 first literature prize in the novel category from the Province of Salta. Viene Clareando, whose title refers to Atahualpa Yupanqui's famous song of the same name, was published in the United States translated as Departing at Dawn by The Feminist Press at CUNY in 2009. It was also translated to Portuguese in Brazil as Vem Clareando (2013) by the Incentivar publishing house. It was reedited in Spanish by the Biblioteca de Textos Universitarios in 2015.
The Plomo Mummy is the well preserved remains of an Incan child found on Cerro El Plomo near Santiago, Chile in 1954. It was discovered by Guillermo Chacón Carrasco, Jaime Ríos Abarca, and Luis Gerardo Ríos Barrueto. The mummy was brought to the attention of Grete Mostny at the Chilean National Museum of Natural History; she later proved instrumental in the museum's acquisition of the specimen. The Plomo Mummy was the first notable frozen mummy discovery of high-altitude Capacocha human sacrifice by the Incas, a practice called qhapaq hucha.
The Children of Llullaillaco, also known as the Mummies of Llullaillaco, are three Inca child mummies discovered on 16 March 1999 by Johan Reinhard and his archaeological team near the summit of Llullaillaco, a 6,739 m (22,110 ft) stratovolcano on the Argentina–Chile border. The children were sacrificed in an Inca religious ritual that took place around the year 1500. In this ritual, the three children were drugged with coca and alcohol then placed inside a small chamber 1.5 metres (5 ft) beneath the ground, where they were left to die. Archaeologists consider them as being among the best-preserved mummies in the world.
Pichu Pichu is an inactive eroded volcano in the Andes of Peru, with seven summits; the highest reaches a height of 5,664 metres (18,583 ft). It lies east of the city Arequipa and together with its neighbours Misti and Chachani is part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes. Pichu Pichu was active many millions of years ago, producing ignimbrites and lava flows with andesitic composition. During the last two million years, a gigantic landslide descended the western side of the volcano and left a large scar that runs north to south. Pichu Pichu bore glaciers during the last glacial maximum, which left moraines and other glacial landforms after they retreated.
The Andean civilizations were South American complex societies of many indigenous people. They stretched down the spine of the Andes for 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from southern Colombia, to Ecuador and Peru, including the deserts of coastal Peru, to north Chile and northwest Argentina. Archaeologists believe that Andean civilizations first developed on the narrow coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. The Caral or Norte Chico civilization of coastal Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, dating back to 3500 BCE. Andean civilization is one of the six "pristine" civilizations of the world, created independently and without influence by other civilizations.
María Constanza Ceruti is an Argentine anthropologist and mountaineer, who has done more than 80 field surveys, most of them as part of National Geographic teams in Andean regions of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Her most important finding are the Children of Llullaillaco, considered the best preserved mummies in the world by the Guinness World Records. She is also the first woman worldwide to specialize in high-altitude archaeology, studying Inca ceremonial centers on the summits of Andean peaks above 6000 meters. She is a pioneer in the anthropological study of sacred mountains around the world, and in the emerging field of glacial archaeology.
The Aconcagua mummy is an Incan capacocha mummy of a seven-year-old boy, dated to around the year 1500. The mummy is well-preserved, due to the extreme cold and dry conditions of its high altitude burial location. The frozen mummy was discovered by hikers in 1985 at 5,300 m (17,400 ft) on Aconcagua in Mendoza, Argentina.
Llullaillaco is a dormant stratovolcano on the border between Argentina and Chile. It lies in the Puna de Atacama, a region of tall volcanic peaks on a high plateau close to the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places in the world. Its maximum elevation is most commonly given as 6723 m, making it the second- or third-highest volcano in the world. Despite its height, it is not clear whether the volcano has any glaciers or merely patches of perennial snow and ice. Between 3700 m and 5000 m elevation there is a sparse plant cover, while at lower altitudes the climate is too dry for plants to grow. A species of mouse on Llullaillaco is the highest-living known vertebrate species.
Sara Sara is a 5,505-metre-high (18,061 ft) volcano lying between Lake Parinacochas and the Ocoña River in Peru. It is situated in the Parinacochas Province and the Paucar del Sara Sara Province. The volcano formed during the Pleistocene during four different stages of volcanic activity, which constructed a volcanic edifice with an oval outline consisting of lava flows and lava domes. The volcano was glaciated during the last glacial maximum; it may still feature glaciers. The last eruption was about 14,000 years ago and future eruptions are possible. The volcano was worshipped by the local population, and an Inca mummy of a 15-year old girl was found on the summit by archaeologists.
Licancabur is a stratovolcano on the border between Bolivia and Chile, south of the Sairecabur volcano and west of Juriques. Part of the Andean Central Volcanic Zone, it has a prominent, 5,916-metre (19,409 ft)-high cone. A 400–500-metre (1,300–1,600 ft) summit crater containing Licancabur Lake, a crater lake which is among the highest lakes in the world, caps the volcano. There are no glaciers owing to the arid climate. Numerous animal species and plants live on the mountain.
