Some of the oldest known corn cobs, husks, stalks and tassels, dating from 6,700 to 3,000 years ago were discovered at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two mound sites on Peru’s arid northern coast. (Credit: Tom D. Dillehay) People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously reported and before [...]
The earliest explorers of the Amazon recorded that it was filled with villages and towns. After European diseases swept the area and wiped out its inhabitants, the jungle regrew and hid all evidence of these civilizations. Later explorers would find no evidence of such civilizations and the archaeological community, in all their brilliance and wisdom, [...]
Recent research shows that the earliest phase of Andean Civilization took place simultaneously with earliest stages of civilization on the Old World. This remarkable phenomenon and its manifestation at the ancient city of Caral in Peru are described in Caral Supe: The Oldest Civilization in the Americas. (Watch both parts below.) Recent research shows that cities [...]
A team of archaeologists, led by Walter Alva, have discovered the wooden tomb of another member of the Mochica culture’s elite – older than the “Señor de Sipan” (Lord of Sipan).
These findings belong to the Moche civilization, which ruled the northern coast of Peru from the time of Christ to 800 AD, centuries prior to the Incas.
Anthropologists working on the slopes of the Andes in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years. Their findings provide long-sought-after evidence that some of the early development of agriculture in the New World took place at farming settlements in the Andes.
A headless skeleton found in a Peruvian tomb is adding new wrinkles to the debate over human sacrifice in the ancient Andes. The decapitated body was found in the Nasca region, named for the ancient civilization that thrived in southern Peru from A.D. 1 to 750.
Prehistoric Polynesians beat Europeans to the Americas, according to a new analysis of chicken bones.
The work provides the first firm evidence that ancient Polynesians voyaged as far as South America, and also strongly suggests that they were responsible for the introduction of chickens to the continent – a question that has been hotly debated for more than 30 years.
People living in the earliest known settlement in the Americas harvested seaweed and other marine plants from a coastline more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) away, new research shows. Scientists discovered several species of seaweed and marine algae dating back more than 14,000 years at the Monte Verde archaeological site in south-central Chile.
Images of disembodied heads are widespread in the art of Nasca, a culture based on the southern coast of Peru from AD 1 to AD 750. But despite this evidence and large numbers of trophy heads in the region’s archaeological record, only eight headless bodies have been recovered with evidence of decapitation, explains Christina A. Conlee (Texas State University). Conlee’s analysis of a newly excavated headless body from the site of La Tiza provides important new data on decapitation and its relationship to ancient ideas of death and regeneration.
Archeologists have uncovered the 1,300-year-old skeleton of a ruler or priest of the ancient Tiwanaku civilization together with precious jewels inside a much-looted pyramid in western Bolivia.
Research at a 4,200-year-old temple in Peru yields clues to an ancient people who may have clocked the heavens
As archaeologists evaluate whether an ancient temple in Buena Vista, Peru, functioned as a calendar, a different research team is preserving the remains of an unusually elaborate astronomical complex just north, in Chankillo. This solar observatory is considered the oldest in the Americas, dating back to the 4th century B.C., and it offers unique physical evidence that a sun cult inhabited Peru at least 1,500 years before the Incas.
Metals found in lake mud in the central Peruvian Andes have revealed the first evidence for pre-Colonial metalsmithing there.
Ruins recently discovered in southern Peru could be the ancient “lost city” of Paititi, according to claims that are drawing serious but cautious response from experts. The presumptive lost city, described in written records as a stone settlement adorned with gold statues, has long been a grail for explorers—as well as a lure for local tourism businesses.
A necklace of gold and turquoise-colored beads at an ancient hunter-gatherer burial site in the Andes Mountains is the oldest crafted gold artifact known in the Americas and challenges the idea that only complex societies could produce such displays of wealth and prestige.
Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient temple, roadway and irrigation systems at a famed fortress overlooking the Inca capital of Cuzco, according to officials involved with the dig.
A 4,000-year-old temple filled with murals has been unearthed on the northern coast of Peru, making it one of the oldest finds in the Americas, a leading archaeologist said on Saturday.
Hundreds of people crowded into a museum in the north-western city of Salta to see “la Doncella”, the Maiden. The remains of the girl, who was 15 when she died, were found in an icy pit on top of a volcano in the Andes, along with a younger boy and girl. Researchers believe they were sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago.
An unusual archeological site discovered in Peru’s mountains may hold clues to the history of the Chachapoya people, known as “cloud warriors,” who fought the Inca Empire before the Spanish conquest.
Far more Indian groups than previously thought are surviving in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest isolated from the outside world but they risk extermination at the hands of encroaching loggers and miners, experts said on Wednesday.
A complex of tombs recently discovered under a pyramid in Peru offers
landmark clues to a thousand-year-old pre-Incan culture,
archaeologists report.
A female mummy with complex tattoos on her arms has been
found in a ceremonial burial site in Peru, the National Geographic
Society reported Tuesday.
The mummy was accompanied by ceremonial items including jewelry and weapons, and the remains of a teenage girl who had been sacrificed,
archaeologists reported.
The discovery in Peru of a 4,200-year-old temple and observatory
pushes back estimates of the rise of an advanced culture in the
Americas.
An ancient temple contains the oldest sculptures and astronomically oriented structures found in the New World. The 33-foot stepped pyramid temple, the Temple of the Fox, in a 20-acre excavation site at Buena Vista, Peru. The temple dates to 2220 B.C. – which makes it 1,000 years older than anything of its kind previously found.
