SEPTEMBER 2005
Peruvian pyramids rival the pharaohs'
By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent, Times on-line
RUINS on Peru’s desert coast dated to some 4,700 years ago suggest an earlier focus of civilisation than any so far identified in the New World. The site of Caral, in the Supe Valley north of Lima, covers 66 hectares (165 acres) and includes pyramids 21m (70ft) high arranged around a large plaza.
The construction
of Caral seems to be associated with the advent
of irrigation agriculture in the Supe Valley and
is built adjacent to the headgate of the main
irrigation canal that serves farmers there today.
 It seems likely that the ancient inhabitants of the Supe Valley expanded upriver from the coast, developed agriculture (involving squash, beans, guava, and cotton) to support a growing population, and in the process created the complex sociopolitical organization required to build an irrigation system, the grand city of Caral, and smaller urban centers in the region. Fish bones and mollusk shells at Caral show an active trade in foodstuffs between coastal and interior inhabitants and suggest that the civilization depended on both agriculture and fishing. |
“What really sets Caral apart is its age,” Roger Atwood reports in Archaeology. “Carbon dating has revealed that its pyramids are contemporary with those of Egypt and the ziggurats of Mesopotamia.” These are among the earliest monumental architecture in the Old World. Surveys and excavations in neighbouring valleys, Atwood says, suggest that Caral “stood at the centre of the first society in the Americas to build cities and engage in trade on a large scale”.
Caral has been investigated over the past decade by a
Peruvian team headed by Dr Ruth Shady. Other sites in
Peru are as early, but the report notes that “none
approach the size and scope of its architecture.
Caral’s people dedicated themselves to their
buildings with civic intensity, constantly making and
remaking their stone-and-mortar walls, sunken plazas and
densely packed residences”.
The population is thought to have been about 3,000. Much of the construction was done using “shicra bags”, loosely woven containers resembling a horse’s hay-net which were packed with boulders and used as building blocks. Shicra is a long-bladed annual grass, and thus ideal for radiocarbon dating: sample ages were as early as 2727BC, and when the dates were published in 2001 they opened a new debate on the orgins of Peruvian civilisation.
That Caral was not a unique site was shown by surveys
carried out by Drs Jonathan Haas and Winifred Creamer in
three neighbouring coastal valleys, which revealed a
number of coeval sites: “There is now evidence of an
extraordinary complex of more than 20 separate major
residential centres with monumental architecture
concentrated in just three small valleys,” they
reported. The American team disputes Shady’s claim
that Caral is the “capital” of this early
polity, seeing it rather as an important regional centre.
| The
Circular Plaza of the Mayor Pyramid, constructed
5,000 years, is the symbol of the political power
and religious of the first Peruvian state. The discovery of this sacred city, was made in 1994, being considered now, the oldest in America. The circular plaza is formed by a series of central platforms that reach about 20 mts. of highness. The internal space of the circular plaza has a diameter of 21 mts. from south to north and 22 mts. from east to west. The external diameter is 36.5 mts. The walls were constructed of cut rock, polished and painted. The area is about 65 hectares. The presence of irrigation canals could of been for agriculture purposes since a great number of persons had to eat and the discoveries of fish bones and mollusks meant that they were fishermen, also. In the diggings, it was found 32 flutes made of pelican and condor bones and 37 cornets of Llamas and Tarucas (Deer) bones. |
Whether it can truly be seen as a civilisation comparable in attainment with contemporary Egypt and Mesopotamia is doubtful, but it demonstrates that the tradition culminating in the Inca Empire had deeper roots than anyone imagined.
Archaeology Vol 58 No 4:18-25
