Archaeologists find 5,500-year-old plaza in Peru

By Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) - A ceremonial plaza built 5,500 years ago has been discovered in Peru, and archaeologists involved in the dig said on Monday carbon dating shows it is one of the oldest structures ever found in the Americas.

A team of Peruvian and German archaeologists uncovered the circular plaza, which was hidden beneath another piece of architecture at the ruins known as Sechin Bajo, in Casma, 229 miles (370 km) north of Lima, the capital. Friezes depicting a warrior with a knife and trophies were found near the plaza.

"It's an impressive find; the scientific and archaeology communities are very happy," said Cesar Perez, the scientist at Peru's National Institute of Culture who supervised the project. "This could redesign the history of the country."

Prior to the discovery at Sechin Bajo, archaeologists considered the ancient Peruvian citadel of Caral to be one of the oldest in the Western Hemisphere, at about 5,000 years.

Scientists say Caral, located a few hours drive from Sechin Bajo, was one of six places in the world -- along with Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India and Mesoamerica -- where humans started living in cities about 5,000 years ago.

"The dating done by the German archaeologists puts it at about 5,500 years," Perez said of the plaza, which has a diameter of about 46 feet (14 metres).

Earlier finds near Sechin Bajo had been dated at 3,600 years, and there may be other pieces of the citadel older than the plaza.

"We've found other pieces of architecture underneath the plaza that could be even older," German Yenque, an archaeologist at the dig site, told Reuters. "There are four or five plazas deeper down, which means the structure was rebuilt several times, perhaps every 100 to 300 years."

Hundreds of archaeological sites dot the country, and many of the ruined structures were built by cultures that preceded the powerful Incan empire, which reached its peak in the 16th century, just before Spanish conquerors arrived in what is now Peru.

There are so many archaeological treasures that tomb robbing is a widespread problem in the Andean country.

Yenque said the scientists are filling in the site with dirt to preserve it and plan to resume excavation of the deeper floors when they get more grants to fund the project.

"We are lucky it was never destroyed by tomb robbers; that is why we are covering it up now," Yenque said.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino, writing by Terry Wade, editing by Eric Walsh)

Tomb find reveals pre-Inca city

Archaeologists working in northern Peru have discovered a spectacular tomb complex about 1,000 years old.

The complex contains at least 20 tombs, and dates from the pre-Inca Sican era.

Among the discoveries are 12 "tumis", ceremonial knives which scientists have not been able to study in a burial site before, as well as ceramics and masks.

The Sican culture flourished from approximately AD 800-1300, one of several metalworking societies which succumbed to drought and conquest.

Archaeologists working on the project say the find will help them understand details of the culture.

Sican was a very organised society

Izumi Shimada"It is a religious city, a sacred settlement, and at each excavation site is a cemetery," Izumi Shimada told Peru's El Comercio newspaper.

"That tells us that Sican was a very organised society."

Professor Shimada, based at the University of Southern Illinois in the US, has been excavating Sican sites for a quarter of a century. The latest dig was performed in conjunction with the Sican National Museum.

Trading goods

The burial site sits on Peru's northern coast, near the town of Ferrenafe.

Discoveries in the tomb complex include tumis formed from an alloy of silver, copper and gold; masks, breastplates and ceramics.

The site contains at least 20 tombs, making it a "religious city"

Buried in a pyramid 30m (100ft) long, archaeologists found the bones of a woman in her early 20s surrounded by figurines of Sican gods, ceramics and objects in copper and gold.

Another set of bones, clearly from a person of some stature, were found in a seated position accompanied by a metallic crown, part of a thorny oyster, and various ceramic objects including a vase.

The tumis are a prize find, because until now the knives have come to scientists from tomb raiders. Finding them in situ would allow a closer understanding of their role in Sican culture, researchers said.
One of the tumis features a representation of Naylamp, the mythical founder of Sican society who according to legend emerged from the sea and became a god.

The Sican were noted for producing gold, silver and copper in quantities which were substantial for the period.

They traded shells and stones with societies in what are now Ecuador, Chile and Colombia.

Their civilisation had already declined by the time that the mightiest of Peruvian cultures, the Inca, rose to prominence about AD 1200.

Lost society tore itself apart

Two thousand years ago, a mysterious and little known civilisation ruled the northern coast of Peru. Its people were called the Moche.

They built huge and bizarre pyramids that still dominate the surrounding landscape; some well over 30m (100ft) tall.

They are so heavily eroded, they look like natural features; only close up can you see they are made up of millions of adobe mud bricks.

These pyramids are known as "huacas", meaning "sacred site" in the local Indian dialect. Several contain rich collections of murals; others house the tombs of Moche leaders.

As archaeologists have excavated these Moche sites, they have unearthed some of the most fabulous pottery and jewellery ever to emerge from the ancient world.

Archaeologist Dr Walter Alva with an elaborate Moche ear ornamentThe Moche were pioneers of metal working techniques such as gilding and early forms of soldering.

It enabled them to create extraordinarily intricate artefacts; ear studs and necklaces, nose rings and helmets, many heavily inlaid with gold and precious stones.

Archaeologists have likened them to the Greek and Roman civilisations in Europe.

But who were these extraordinary people and what happened to them? For decades the fate of the Moche has been one of the greatest archaeological riddles in South America.

Now, at last, scientists are coming up with answers. It is a classic piece of archaeological detective work.

'Mud burials'

This week's Horizon tells the story of the rise and fall of a pre-Inca civilisation that has left an indelible mark on the culture and people of Peru and the central Andes Mountains.

One of the first important insights into this remarkable culture came in the mid-1990s when Canadian archaeologist Dr Steve Bourget, of the University of Texas in Austin, made a series of important discoveries.

Excavating at one of the major Moche huacas - a site known as the Huaca de la Luna - he came across a series of dismembered skeletons that bore all the signs of human sacrifice.

Archaeologist Luis Jaime Castillo holds a Moche ceramic depicting warriors engaged in ritual combatHe also found that many of the skeletons were so deeply encased in mud the burials had to have taken place in the rain.

Yet in this part of Peru it almost never rains; it could not have been a coincidence. Bourget speculated that the Moche, like many desert dwelling peoples, had used human sacrifice to celebrate or encourage rain.


The theory appeared to explain puzzling and enigmatic images of human sacrifice found on Moche pottery; it provided a new insight into Moche society; yet it did not explain why this apparently sophisticated civilisation had disappeared.

Then American climatologist Dr Lonnie Thompson, of Ohio State University, came up with a startling new find. Using evidence from ice cores drilled in ancient glaciers in the Andes, he found that at around AD 550 to 600, the coastal area where the Moche lived had been hit by a climatic catastrophe.

Internal collapse

For 30 years the coast had been ravaged by rain storms and floods - what is known as a Mega El Niño - followed by at least 30 years of drought. All the human sacrifices in the world would have been powerless to halt such a disaster.

It seemed a plausible explanation for the demise of a civilisation.
But then in the late 1990s, American archaeologist Dr Tom Dillehay revisited some of the more obscure Moche sites and found that they dated from after AD 650.

Thompson's ice cores have opened up the climate history bookMany were as late as AD 750, 100 years after the climatic double-whammy. He also found that at these later settlements, the huacas had been replaced by fortresses.

The Moche had clearly survived the climatic disaster but had they then been hit by an invasion? Dillehay cast around but could find no evidence for this.
He now put together a new theory, one that, in various guises, is now widely accepted by South American experts.

The Moche had struggled through the climatic disaster but the leadership - which at least in part had claimed authority from its ability to determine the weather - had lost authority and Moche villages and/or clan groups had turned on each other in a battle for scarce resources such as food and land.
Moche society had pulled itself apart.

Five Places You Should Visit Now for Authentic Experiences

09/4/08

Northern Interior, Peru



For many travelers, Peru has become synonymous with Machu Picchu.

However, in the largely undiscovered North, Peru’s rich culture combines with extraordinary opportunities for adventure activities as well as more gentle nature and wildlife experiences. My colleagues at Xola worked in Peru for several weeks this spring and turned up the following off-the-radar itinerary.

From Chiclayo, drive to Chachapoyas, home to the ancient People of the Clouds before the Inca took over their civilization.

The basis for this culture’s name was evident as our car edged up the mountain in dense cloud cover until we were rewarded at our destination with a stunning view of sharp mountain peaks poking through downy, white clouds.

Hike or ride horseback through the area to view the ruins that archaeologists are just starting to map and excavate. The massive fortress at Kuelap is quickly gaining recognition as “the Machu Picchu of Northern Peru,” with over 400 buildings enclosed by a 70-foot stone wall.

The members of the Xola team were the only visitors at the site that day, and marveled at how the Chachapoyas people created this stone compound atop a mountain without the use of the wheel.

The burial ground of Karajia features impressive capsule-like tombs built into the hillside. Stop by the museum in Leymebamba to view over 200 mummies recovered from the remote Lake of the Condors.

When you have had your fill of cultural history, take a kayak down the Utcumbamba River, explore the colonial town of Levanto, or wander the Sunday market at Tingo. Be sure to try the milanesa at La Tushpa restaurant in town!

More Info:
http://www.inkanatura.com/interiorchachapoyaskuelap.asp

EBay Has Unexpected, Chilling Effect On Looting Of Antiquities, Archaelogist Finds

ScienceDaily (May 9, 2009) — Having worked for 25 years at fragile archaeological sites in Peru, UCLA archaeologist Charles "Chip" Stanish held his breath when the online auction house eBay launched more than a decade ago.

"My greatest fear was that the Internet would democratize antiquities trafficking, which previously had been a wealthy person's vice, and lead to widespread looting," said the UCLA professor of anthropology, who directs the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.

Indeed, eBay has drastically altered the transporting and selling of illegal artifacts, Stanish writes in an article in the May/June issue of Archaeology, but not in the way he and other archaeologists had feared.

By improving access to a worldwide market, eBay has inadvertently created a vast market for copies of antiquities, diverting whole villages from looting to producing fake artifacts, Stanish writes. The proliferation of these copies also has added new risks to buying objects billed as artifacts, which in turn has worked to depress the market for these items, further reducing incentives to loot.

"For most of us, the Web has forever distorted the antiquities trafficking market in a positive way," Stanish said.

Looting, which is illegal, is widely recognized as destructive to cultural heritage because it can remove from public ownership tangible links to a people's past. In addition, looting is perceived as the enemy of scholarship because it typically is done without regard to any appropriate methods that allow scientists to date objects and to place them in a larger, more meaningful context.

One of the world's premiere authorities on Andean archaeology and supervisor, at UCLA, of the one of the world's largest collections of working archaeologists, Stanish has been tracking objects billed as antiquities on eBay for more than nine years. His conclusions also are informed by experiences with the U.S. customs service, which occasionally asks him to authenticate objects. In addition, Stanish has visited a number of workshops in Peru and Bolivia that specialize in reproductions of pottery and has interviewed these artisans. While his background is in South American archaeology, he has tracked eBay listings of antiquities from many cultures.

"Chinese, Bulgarian, Egyptian, Peruvian and Mexican workshops are now producing fakes at a frenetic pace," he writes.

When he first started tracking eBay's sales of antiquities, Stanish focused mainly on objects related to his field. At the time, the ratio of real artifacts to fakes was about 50-50, he estimates. About five years later, 95 percent were fakes. Now, he admits, he can't always tell, because the quality of the fakes has improved so much.

He estimates that about 30 percent of "antiquities" currently for sale on eBay are obvious fakes, in so much as creators mix up iconography and choose colors and shapes for visual effect rather than authenticity. Another 5 percent or so are genuine treasures. The rest fall in the ambiguous "I would have to hold it in my hand to be able to make an informed decision" category, he writes. Stanish admits himself to occasionally being duped by fakes encountered in shops in areas where both looted items and fakes are sold.

The advent of eBay has had the biggest impact on the antiquities market by reducing the incentive to unearth precious treasures in the first place, Stanish has found.

"People who used to make a few dollars selling a looted artifact to a middleman in their village can now produce their own 'almost-as-good-as-old' objects and go directly to a person in a nearby town who has an eBay account," he said. "They will receive the same amount or even more than they could have received for actual antiquities."

As a result of the rise of a ready market, many of the primary purveyors have shifted from looting sites to faking antiquities.

In addition to linking craftsmen with a market for cheap fakes, eBay has tended to have a depressing effect on prices for real looted artifacts, further discouraging locals from pillaging precious sites.

"The value of ... illicit digging decreases every time someone buys a 'genuine' Moche pot for $35, plus shipping and handling," he writes. (An authentic antiquity would sell for upwards of $15,000.)

So far, authentication techniques have struggled to keep abreast of increasingly sophisticated fakes, Stanish said. Pottery can still be authenticated reliably, although the process is costly. In addition, forgers tend to only guarantee the authenticity of their pieces as long as no form of "destructive" analysis is used. While just a tiny flake of pottery is required for thermoluminescence dating — the gold standard for pottery — the process is technically considered destructive, Stanish points out, so the test invalidates such warrantees, no matter its conclusion.

Thanks to laser technology and chemical processes for forming antique-appearing patinas, stone and metal, reproductions are "almost impossible" to authenticate using today's technology, Stanish writes. However, the prospect of authentication techniques eventually catching up with today's fakes is also having a chilling effect on the market for antiquities, by dramatically adding to the risk of illicit, high-end trafficking.

"Who wants to spend $50,000 on an object 'guaranteed' to be ancient by today's standards, when someone can come along in five years with a new technology that definitively proves it to be a fake," he asks.

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Adapted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles.

Rock Art Marks Transformations In Traditional Peruvian Societies

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2008) — Most rock paintings and rock carvings or petroglyphs were created by ancient and prehistoric societies. Archaeologists have long used them to gain clues to the way of life of such peoples. Certain rock frescos − such as the renowned Lascaux and Chauvet cave paintings or the petroglyphs of Scandinavia and North America − have already yielded substantial information on our ancestors' daily lives.

However, for other regions of the world like Latin America studies are still fragmentary. In Peru, where many sites have already been located, mystery still cloaks the signification and role of these concentrations of cave paintings and petroglyphs. One of these sites, Toro Muerto, in the South of the country, contains over 4000 carved blocks scattered over several dozen hectares.

Discoveries made in different areas of the country over recent years by Peruvian and international researchers are keys to improved understanding of the meaning behind these artistic representations which were realized over a long period from 10 000 BP to the arrival of the first Spanish Conquistadors in the XVIth Century, or even beyond that time, as in the Cuzco area.

Analysis of the distribution and characteristics of these sites brought out a distinction between the art produced in the coastal valleys from that of the Andean Cordillera uplands. The extensive sites with rocks carved in the open air are concentrated mainly on the Pacific facing slopes, whereas the scenes painted in caves or under shelters predominate in the high regions and on the Amazon side.

These preferences as to the supports and techniques used reflect associated ritual practices which are probably rather different. Study of the oldest rock paintings and their dating by indirect methods (carbon 14 dating of remains of in situ burnt charcoal) showed them to be the work of hunter-gatherers who occupied the region between 7000 and 3000 BC The motifs are small and most often painted in red. They depict hunting scenes involving wild camelid species, such as the guanaco, and also human-like silhouettes. The latter are portrayed with animal-like rather than human faces. Such figures are usually armed with sticks, bows or assegais and sometimes carry nets.

The most ancient sites show a predominance of naturalistic representations of dead or wounded animals. However, a second set dated at 4000 to 5000 years BC eulogizes fertility. This time the images are large, drawn with the abdomen enormously swollen, sometimes containing a foetus. This stylistic development, which seems to coincide with the beginnings of animal husbandry in the high upland regions of Peru, appear to symbolize the emergence of pastoralism and the change in man—animal relationships that came along with this practice.

These research studies also brought into relief periods that were quite distinct in terms of stylistic evolution of carved figures. Whereas the most ancient motifs, associated with the rise of the first great Andean civilizations (2500-300 BC) essentially reproduced complex figures bearing high symbolic and spiritual content, depicting mythical, often monster-like, animals and supernatural beings, the later carvings characteristically appear in abundance and testify to a simplification of morphological features. The simplicity and relative abundance of these petroglyphs, which depict animals of the local fauna and also scenes from daily life, suggest a degree of generalization of rock carving practices to further sections of the society.

The largest sites dating from this era, which contain several hundred carved rocks with dozens of motifs, probably played a significant role in societies' cultural and social life, both at local and regional level. Their location, and some of the rituals that took place, may have been linked to areas of production and trade routes of prized commodities such as coca or salt. Other, geographical, factors like the confluence of two rivers or the proximity to communication routes also appear to have significantly influenced the context and purpose of these artistic representations.

A more extensive study of these archaeological sites, still strongly subjected to vandalism and erosion, is paramount. These vestiges testify to the ideological and social changes that occurred over a period of almost 8000 years, and can further understanding of the way of life and beliefs of peoples who were among the New World's first settlers.

Reference: Guffroy, J., New research into rock art in Peru (2000-2004), In :G. Bahn, A. Fossati (eds), Rock art studies. News of the world III, 2008, Oxbow: p 239-247

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Adapted from materials provided by Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Travel blog: Arequipa, Colca Canyon and the Sacred Valley

Monday, 11 Aug 2008 11:16

Rhian Nicholson has swapped the bright lights of London for a three month journey across South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. Here is her ninth blog entry:

Travel into the old Inca heartland of central Peru and it's not long before a combination of altitude and more mummies, ruins and penas (traditional Andean evenings of food, music and dance) than you can throw a very large stick at start to do strange things to your brain.

We're talking Inca children sacrificed on Mount Ampato in a last ditch effort to appease the gods; crumbling Inca settlements set high in the stunning Sacred Valley; and indigenous people dressed in elaborate costumes twisting and twirling to the sounds of twangy guitars and panpipes.

Arequipa, Peru's second largest city nestles in the shadows of the three massive peaks of El Misti, Chacani and Pichu Pichu.

It is home to one of the most well-known Inca figures - Juanita the Ice Princess whose world tours in her frozen coffin make her the Madonna of the archaeological world (admittedly without the singing and dancing).

After 500 years buried in an icy grave she made her debut in the modern world in 1995, her face and body almost perfectly preserved by the ice and cold.

Centuries older and looking like grotesque china dolls with long matted hair atop their creamy skulls, the mummies of the Chaucilla cemetery are the stuff of children's bedtime fears.

Dressed in rags and sitting huddled in the foetal position (apparently to facilitate their rebirth in the afterlife) in pits-come-open graves and surrounded by bones, skulls and ceramic objects, they would certainly make an impressive army of extras in any horror film worth its salt.

If you're going to sacrifice yourself to the gods then whiling away your days in the colonial oasis that is the Santa Catalina monastery in Arequipa is a fate far better than death.

Its cobbled streets and spacious terracotta courtyards are more reminiscent of a four star holiday resort than a place of quasi-religious devotion.

Outside, the shops lining the photogenic Plaza des Armas certainly put temptation in your path with enough alpaca wool goods and silver jewellery to give your bank manager a coronary.

Well, a girl can never have too many scarves - even if you've only got one neck and have to fork out for another bag to carry them in...

You'd think therefore that leaving the bright lights of the city for the barren landscape of the Colca Canyon would give your debit card a well earned breather. How wrong can you be?! Driving through the earthy wilderness - where herds of llamas, alpacas and vicunas (all big fluffy sheep-like things with long legs - it's not that easy to tell them apart) indulge their suicidal impulses by darting in front of the tourist buses - it's nigh on impossible not to cast your eye over the local handicrafts sold by indigenous women on the roadside.

And who can really resist stripey alpaca socks (essential for those cold Andean nights), woolly hats with ear flaps in a rather fetching llama pattern (useful for those cold Andean winter days) and intricately stitched woven bags (they're just pretty...) Souvenir shopping should come with a health warning.

Rather disturbingly the locals dress up their small children in traditional clothes and bring along their pet alpacas adorned with brightly coloured earrings and woolly coats for the tourists to photograph for the princely sum of one sol (20p).

And it all works well until they lose their cuteness factor and are shipped off to the local restaurants where they end their days on the menu turisticas (the alpacas not the children that is).

If you're going to get fully into the Peruvian spirit then mastering the art of squelching coca leaves around your mouth (you don't chew apparently) is a must.

A staple of Andean life the locals seem to have a wad permanently wedged into one cheek, savouring the juices that ward off hunger, tiredness and crucially altitude sickness - rather helpful when you're at 4,900 metres!

Unfortunately they also taste like an old dirt-encrusted slipper - drinking the coca tea or simply floating in the local hot springs watching the sunset over the mountains is far more pleasant and does the job just as well.

And why go to all this effort? Well, Colca Canyon is the world's second deepest with tiny houses perching on its jagged rust-coloured sides and shadows blackening the valley floor.

Although a few Andean people have braved the rather barren conditions to make it their home, it's far more popular with the condors who swoop, glide and torment the tourists with the faint possibility of getting a decent photo.

This is great if you're a bird watching fan, otherwise standing round for two hours in the freezing cold offers little reward for a 05:30 start.

Meanwhile in Cuzco, the old heart of the Inca empire, you're unlikely to be in bed before 05:30 whether you're psyching yourself up for the Inca trail or celebrating having made it to the end.

Nowadays the city centre is a frenetic hive of tourist activity with the shops lining the picturesque Plaza des Armas and its surrounding cobbled streets flogging souvenirs, Machu Picchu daytrips, any piece of outdoor equipment you may possibly need for the Inca trail and more restaurants and bars than the average person has liver cells.

And with all the free drink offers on every night of the week you can safely assume that you'll lose a few over the course of a couple of nights appreciating all the city has to offer.

But its biggest draw is its proximity to the Sacred Valley - a breathtaking mesh of snow-capped mountains, terracotta slopes and pale yellow farmland cut through by the turquoise Rio Urubamba and packed with Inca ruins.

Perched above Cuzco is Saqsaywaman - known to non-Quechua speaking tourists as Sexy Woman - once a huge fort that staged one of the bloodiest battles between the Spanish and Manco Inca.

When the Inca Patachutec originally built Cuzco he intended it to be in the shape of a puma (one of the Inca's most sacred animals along with snakes and condors) with Saqsaywaman as its head. Unfortunately with the urban sprawl over the centuries the shape of the city now more closely resembles a squashed badger.

Snaking down the road past more market stalls selling yet more handicrafts made of yet more alpaca wool, the town of Pisac leaps into view on the valley floor, its central plaza groaning under the weight of souvenir stalls.

The highlight, however, is not just getting that silver pendant for half the asking price. A steep climb up from the town lies a group of ruins that offer a spectacular panoramic over the valley below (and which more than justifies the rasping sound coming from your lungs).

Back in its heyday it used to be the administrative centre for the surrounding villages with a functioning water system, religious buildings made of polished stone and rougher rustic style buildings for everyday use. These were definitely rooms with a view...

Last stop en route through the Sacred Valley is the market town of Ollantaytambo. Its llama shaped ruins cover the steep valley sides with rocks still left where they were abandoned centuries ago when the arrival of the Spanish disrupted construction of the fort.

Nowadays it's swarming with tourists making the most of creature comforts before starting the Inca trail at KM82.

And indeed you'll never fully appreciate just how good that final hot shower actually was until you are two days into the trek...

Rhian Nicholson

Article in travelbite.co.uk