The Sacred City of Caral-Supe, or simply Caral, is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

where the remains of the main city of the Caral civilization are found. It is located in the Supe valley of Peru, near the current town of Caral, 182 kilometers north of

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

, 23 km from the coast and 350

metres above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level v ...

. It is attributed an antiquity of 5,000 years and it is considered the oldest city in the Americas and one of the oldest in the world. No other site has been found with such a diversity of monumental buildings or different ceremonial and administrative functions in the Americas as early as Caral. It has been declared a Humanity Cultural Heritage site by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

. The Caral culture developed between 3000 and 1800 B.C (Late Archaic and Lower Formative periods). In America, it is the oldest of the pre-Hispanic civilizations, developing 1,500 years earlier than the Olmec civilization, the first

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

n complex society. Closely related to the city of Caral was an early fishing city, Áspero or El Áspero, located on the coast near the mouth of the Supe River. There, remains of human sacrifices (two children and a newborn) have been found. In 2016, the remains were found of a woman, who presumably belonged to the local elite of 4,500 years ago.

History

Caral was inhabited between approximately

26th century BC The 26th century BC was a century that lasted from the year 2600 BC to 2501 BC. Events Crete * c. 2600–2400 BC: Minoan civilization, Early Minoan I period in Crete. Egypt * c. 2551–2526 BC: Reign of Khufu, second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynas ...

and 20th century BC, and the site includes an area of more than . Caral has been described by its excavators as the oldest urban center in the Americas. This claim has been challenged by the discovery of other ancient sites nearby, such as Bandurria, Peru. Accommodating more than 3,000 inhabitants, Caral is the best studied and one of the largest sites known of the

Norte Chico civilization Norte may refer to: Places * Norte, Cape Verde, a village in the east-northeastern part of the island of Boa Vista * Norte de Mexico, a region of Mexico * Norte Region, Brazil, a region of Brazil * Norte Region, Portugal The North Region ( ) or ...

. The city was declared a

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

in 2009.UNESCO World Heritage Centre. In early 2021, tensions arose between squatters claiming land rights and archaeologists researching the site, as housing construction encroached on the site. PeruCaral01.jpg, The Caral temples in the arid Supe Valley, some 20 km from the Pacific coast. Caral 1.JPG

Archaeological findings

Paul Kosok discovered Caral in 1948. The site received little attention at the time because it appeared to lack many of the typical artifacts that were sought at archaeological sites throughout the Andes. In 1975, the Peruvian architect Carlos Williams made a detailed record of most of the archaeological sites of the valley of Supe, among which he recorded Caral. Based on what he observed in the region, he made some observations about the development of architecture in the Andes. Ruth Shady further explored this 4,000- to 4,600-year-old city in the Peruvian desert, with its elaborate complex of temples, an amphitheater, and ordinary houses.Shady, R. Haas, J. Creamer, W. (2001). Dating Caral, a Pre-ceramic Site in the Supe Valley on the Central Coast of Peru. ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

''. 292:723-726.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
/ref> The urban complex is spread out over and contains plazas and residential buildings. Caral was a thriving metropolis at roughly the same time as the great pyramids were being built in Egypt, which is considered one of the earliest civilizations in the world. Caral is the largest recorded site in the Andean region, with dates older than 2000 BC. It appears to be the model for the urban design adopted by Andean civilizations that rose and fell over the span of four millennia. Scholars believe that research conducted in Caral may answer questions about the origins of the

Andean civilizations The Andean civilizations were South American complex societies of many indigenous people. They stretched down the spine of the Andes for from southern Colombia, to Ecuador and Peru, including the deserts of coastal Peru, to north Chile and no ...

and the development of its first cities. Among the artifacts found at Caral is a knotted textile piece that the excavators have labelled a '' quipu''. They write that the artifact is evidence that the ''quipu'' record keeping system, a method involving knots tied in textiles that was brought to its highest development by the

Inca Empire The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

, was older than any archaeologist previously had determined. Evidence has emerged that the ''quipu'' also may have recorded

logograph In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chines ...

ic information in the same way writing does.

Gary Urton Gary Urton (born July 7, 1946) is an American anthropologist. He was the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies at Harvard University and the chair of its anthropology department between 2012 and 2019. Urton retired from Harvard in 20 ...

has suggested that the ''quipus'' used a

binary code A binary code represents plain text, text, instruction set, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often "0" and "1" from the binary number, binary number system. The binary cod ...

that could record

phonological Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...

or logographic data.

Main temple

The main temple complex () is long, wide and high. The date of its construction is unknown.

Peaceful society

Shady's findings suggest it was a society built on commerce and pleasure. No indications of warfare, such as battlements, weapons, or mutilated bodies, have been found at Caral. This contrasts with the older site of Sechin Bajo, where depictions of weapons are found. In one of the Caral temples, researchers found 32 flutes made of

condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua language, Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. One species, the And ...

and

pelican Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before ...

bones and 37

cornett The cornett (, ) is a lip-reed wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. Although smaller and larger sizes were made in both straight and curved forms, surviving cornetts are most ...

s of

deer A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...

and

llama The llama (; or ) (''Lama glama'') is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a List of meat animals, meat and pack animal by Inca empire, Andean cultures since the pre-Columbian era. Llamas are social animals and live with ...

bones. One find revealed the remains of a baby, wrapped and buried with a necklace made of stone beads.

Scope of site

Caral was flanked by 19 other

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

complexes scattered across the area of the Supe Valley. The date of 2627 BC for Caral is based on the

carbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was ...

of reed and woven carrying bags that were found on site. These bags were used to carry the stones for the construction of the temples. The material is an excellent candidate for high precision dating. The site may date even earlier, however, as samples from the oldest parts of the excavation have yet to be dated. Caral had a population of approximately 3,000 people. However, 19 other sites in the area (posted at Caral), allow for a possible total population of 20,000 people sharing the same culture in the Supe Valley. All of these sites share similarities with Caral, including small platforms or stone circles. Shady believes that Caral was the focus of this civilization. It is believed to be part of an even more vast cultural complex, trading with the coastal communities and the regions farther inland. She suggests that a depiction of monkeys may be evidence of trade with communities along the Amazon.

Geoglyph

In 2000, Marco Machacuay (the chief of excavations at the time) and his colleague, Rocío Aramburú, discovered a large shape etched on the ground among circular stone lines near Caral. This image, known as a geoglyph, is located on the desert floor just west of the main site at Caral. The lines form the design of a human face with long, streaming hair and a gaping mouth. This geoglyph is similar to bleeding figures with a similar gaping mouths found etched onto the stone walls at a site called Cerro Sechín, in the Casma Valley to the north. What this figure represents is unclear. It is believed to have been constructed around the same time as Caral and to have been associated with a nearby ceremonial site known as ''Chupacigarro''.

Musical instruments

Another significant find at the site was a collection of musical instruments, including 37

s made of deer and llama bones and 33 flutes of unusual construction. The flutes were radiocarbon dated to 2170±90 BC.

City layout

The city of Caral was split into two sections, an "Upper Half" and a "Lower Half". These halves were divided naturally by the Supe River Valley. In the Upper Half there are six monumental complexes, each of which includes a pyramid, open plaza, and assemblage of residential buildings. In the Lower Half there are residential buildings, small pyramids, and one monumental complex called the "Temple of the Amphitheater". The Upper Half complexes were all constructed around a pyramid. These are the "Great Temple/Great Pyramid", "Central Pyramid", "Quarry Pyramid", "Lesser Pyramid", "Pyramid of the Gallery", and "Pyramid of the Huanca". The associated residential structures around each of these pyramids contain evidence of elite living, including food remnants that would have been exclusive to elite lifestyles, such as sea lion bones. In the Upper Half of Caral, many of the residents were wealthy elites, whose lives likely were associated with religious and social activities that would have taken place in the temples. By comparison, the residential buildings in the Lower Half have less evidence of elite populations. Instead of the large structures, exclusively elite residential complexes of the Upper Half, these residences are smaller and single rooms are used for more than one purpose. The diets of the people living in the Lower Half of Caral consisted mostly of agricultural plants and some fish. These diets were less rich than those of the elites living in the Upper Half. The current explanation for the divided city is that the city was intentionally planned in this way, with the monumental architecture and complexes of the Upper Half designed both to house elites and to physically indicate their political power. Conversely, the Lower Half was designed to house laborers, with the river serving as the division between these groups. This sort of intentional city planning is evidence of structuralized inequality at Caral, which perpetuated existing social stratification.

References

External links

* features 3-D renderings of major monument; accessed 24 January 2017
UNESCO – Sacred City of Caral-Supe (World Heritage)
* ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/caraltrans.shtml Transcript of BBC Horizon program about Caral accessed 24 January 2017
Gigapan Caral
high resolution panorama of Caral
La Zona Arqueológica Caral
{{Authority control Andean civilizations Archaeological sites in Peru Pyramids in Peru Former populated places in Peru World Heritage Sites in Peru Archaeological sites in the Department of Lima Tourist attractions in the Department of Lima Andean preceramic Norte Chico civilization 27th-century BC establishments