I am a poor farmer in Peru. I am very intelligent, but because of education and family issues, I am destined to stay where I am, unless I uproot my family and move to some city somewhere. There I would most likely have to live in some slum until I found someone willing to give an uneducated farmer a chance. I do have one thing of intrest, I discovered a cache of rock carvings that depict very boring scenes of everyday life. Every now and then, I see some foreigner pass through is interested in antique items. I have my stash of stones but really they are unintesting. I come up with an idea. I know I can find the same rocks the stones were carved from(they are fairly common), and I can carve some unusual pictures that would really interest the foreigner. So I start off carving a man hunting a giraffe, I've seen a picture of one once. So I start carving, it takes a couple of attempts but I come pretty close to the style(I've seen the stones, they are a stick figure with layers of outlines).
I hand the foreigner two rocks, one normal and one with the giraffe. He likes them and asks for more, I give him some of the old ones and he asks for more. I tell him to come back later and I'll give him some more. I carve one more unusual one and have about 10 more of the old ones. The foreigner is very excited with his new batch. He pays me money for the stones and says that he would be interested in more, but he has to go and won;t be back for several months. I say thank you for huge amount of money he gives me(a small price for him) and I begin my work on more carvings.
The rest you know. Of the 11K stones, there are very few truely interesting stones. The scientist was happy with his find, and the farmer got big coin for his couple of days of carving effort. That seems to be the more likely scenario.
I agree.
However, I seem to remember reading that someone completely independent of the farmer and Mr. Chavez dug up some of the same engraved stones from under a house that was built before the farmer was born. (I still can't believe this story though)