The Culture Ministry said it had closed the country's most famous tourist attraction as well as the Inca Trail leading up to the site "to protect the safety of tourists and the population in general."

A Peruvian historian and an American archeologist say the site's re-discoverer was given bad information when he arrived at the ancient Incan ruins — and we've all been going along with it.

Yale researchers have found new evidence of human habitation on Machu Picchu as far back as 1420, some three decades earlier than previously believed.