Ica Stones

WIP

By Brian Kufel

A Collection of Ica Stones

The Ica Stones are a series of andesite stones supposedly dug up by Basilio Uschuya along with other farmers in the 1960s. They draw their name from the Ica province of Peru where they were supposedly created. The stones were notably collected and popularized by Dr. Javier Cabrera. These stones depict anachronistic drawings, most famously dinosaurs. They have been used to prove the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs to support claims to a young earth or the existence of modern humans for hundreds of millions of years and their guidance by aliens. These claims are made by young-earth creationists as well as ancient astronaut theorists. Uschuya has since admitted to manufacturing the stones in an interrogation by the Peruvian government, making them forgeries.

History

An Ica Stone Depicting a Human Riding a Triceratops

Major Proponents

Although many different people have theorized about the validity and implications of the Ica stones, these three people have played the biggest roles in the creation and development of the pseudoarchaeological narrative surrounding the Ica stones.

Basilio Uschuya

Basilio Uschaya is a Peruvian farmer credited with the finding or creation of many Ica stones and the greater distribution of Ica stone theorization through his sale of many thousands of them to Dr. Javier Cabrera in the 1960s. He had claimed that these stones were found in caves in great quantities and that local farmers have found many more of these andesite stones. It is true that many other farmers have come forward with other stones that they often sold to Dr. Cabrera or tourists. The caves in which the stones were said to be found were never named nor examined by any archaeologists, but still many claimed that there were hundreds of thousands of Ica stones still in caves.

Uschaya did not generally involve himself in the propagation of the narratives around the stones and preferred to just sell them. This changed dramatically after the publication of these stones by Javier Cabrera sparked interest in ancient astronaut and creationist communities. The publishing of many pseudoarchaeological books led to the creation of a BBC TV series that was critical of the Ica stones. That drew attention from the Peruvian press and authorities which arrested Uschaya and questioned him. At this point, he admitted to forging the stones and selling them in order to profit but noted that he never intended for the consequences to reach farther than some sales to tourists and museum curators.

Javier Cabrera

Dr. Javier Cabrera is a Peruvian doctor that is widely credited with the discovery of the Ica stones due to his dissemination of information about his collection and interpretations of Ica stones. As a doctor, Dr. Cabrera was very accomplished. He worked as a professor and the head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Lima. These credentials helped his claims of advanced medical procedures occurring in the art of Ica stones.

On his forty-second birthday, Dr. Cabrera was shown pictures of Ica stones by a friend and he quickly became engrossed in the examination and collection of these artifacts. Even before Dr. Cabrera's "discoveries" he had a great amount of interest in the pre-history of Peru. With Ica stones though, his interest was truly piqued. His collection by the late 1970s was estimated to be over 10,000 stones large. Even in the late 1960s, Cabrera was sharing information about his stones to anyone who would listen. The stones were of particular interest to Erich Von Daniken and other ancient astronaut theorists who quickly adopted these stones and developed a narrative to be included in the overarching narrative of ancient astronaut lore.

After Basilio Uschaya's admission to forgery, Dr. Cabrera continued to advocate for the validity of the Ica stones. He claims that some stones were manufactured, but a great deal of them are real and the forgeries merely copied the real ones. Despite the admission of Von Daniken, now a friend of Cabrera, that the stones were likely fake, Cabrera has continued to collect and create grand hypotheses about the Ica stones. These include new assertions about the ancient people who allegedly made the stones which he referred to as "gliptoliths".

In 1996 Javier Cabrera created the Museo de Cabrera in Ica, Peru. This museum hosts over 5,000 stones and is considered by Cabrera to be an essential legacy. The museum still operates to this day and Cabrera has never accepted the confession of Uschaya.

Erich Von Daniken

Erich Von Daniken is perhaps the most influential pseudoarchaeologist of our time. His

Pseudoarchaeological Narratives

The narratives around these stones changes depending on the overarching claims that a specific theorist is trying to make. Generally, these overarching claims can be split into two groups, Young-earth creationists, and ancient astronaut believers. The narratives of these two groups draw on the Ica stones as evidence but make dramatically different claims. Young-earth creationists generally use the stones to discredit scientific timelines in favor of biblical ones while ancient astronaut supporters have developed a large narrative involving a much longer human history with alien contact. The variance in conclusions does show that these stones by themselves do not necessarily prove a single interpretation, but if accepted as true, they do invalidate the work of Archaeology.