Word: vilcabamba
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...years scientists have flocked to the Ecuadorian village of Vilcabamba, deep in the Andes, to study its amazingly vigorous people. Along with two similar mountain regions in the Soviet Caucasus and Pakistani Kashmir, Vilcabamba was believed to be populated by a large number of remarkably old inhabitants. A 1971 census listed 11.4% of the villagers in the over-60 category (compared with 4.5% elsewhere in rural Ecuador) and reported that nine of the 819 residents were 100 or older...
...Alexander Leaf, Harvard professor of clinical medicine, whose 1973 National Geographic article and 1975 book Youth in Old Age did much to advance the legend of Vilcabamba's oldsters, ruefully said that it was apparently all a hoax. Vilcabamba ("Sacred Valley" in the Inca tongue), it now appears, has no more senior citizens per capita than other Andean towns. In fact, the revelations of such gerontological high jinks are remarkably similar to earlier reports from Soviet scientists that some of their old folks may not be as ancient as they claim...