Peru is affected by the archaeological discoveries of many civilizations, from the highlands to the coast. Twenty years ago, a National Geographic team located Juanita the Ice Maiden, an Incan princess sacrificed on Mount Ampato more than 500 years ago. Over the past decade, archaeologists have unearthed more than 2,000 fairly well-preserved mummies from one of Peru's largest Inca burial sites, located beneath a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima. Researchers describe Caral, an important Peruvian estate thought to date back to 2600 BC, as the oldest city in the Americas, and archaeologists recently celebrated the invention of a 4,000-12-month-old temple on the northern coast . Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay First inhabited 20,000 years ago, Peru became the cradle of many of the world's most historic and complex pre-Columbian civilizations. Americas. The Chavín, Paracas, Nazca, Huari, Moche and Incas, among others, form a long line of complex cultures, occasionally overlapping and often warring, dating back to 2000 BC before the Incas, two other civilizations, the Chavín . and the Huari-Tiahuanaco achieved pan-Andean empires. Most of what is believed about pre-Columbian cultures is based on the discovery of temples and tombs because none had a written language. Further complicating matters is the fact that as one way of life succeeded the previous one, it imposed its values ​​and social form on the vanquished, but also assimilated abilities that were useful to it, making it quite difficult to differentiate between some first crops. During Prehistory (20,000 BC – 6,000 BC), the first societies were located mainly in coastal regions and highlands. Many have been victims of wars, cyclical floods, prolonged droughts and earthquakes. evidence of crucial pre-Columbian cultures, including ruined temples; wonderful collections of ceramics, masks and jewelry; and identified tombs with well-preserved mummies - can be found anywhere in Peru, and some websites are currently being excavated and searched for clues. Most historians believe that the primary population crossed the Bering Strait into Asia during the last ice age, traveled through the Americas, and settled the region around 20,000 BC (although this migratory pattern has been disputed by some students). They were nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived along the main and northern coasts. The Pikimachay Cave, which dates back to twelve thousand years BC, is the oldest known inhabited site in Peru. The earliest human remains, found near Huánaco in the Peruvian highlands, date to around 7,000 BC. Early Peruvians were responsible for the rock art at Toquepala (Tacna, 7,000 BC) and the houses at Chillca (Lima, 5,000 BC). Experts say the current assessment of discoveries at the coastal Caral website in the Supe Valley demonstrates the existence of the first complex civilization in the Americas. The metropolis became inhabited four or seven hundred years ago, 1,000 years earlier than was once believed. In the pre-Incan cultures (6000 BC – 1100 AD), a long line of equally superior cultures preceded the rather fast-living Inca empire. Over the course of several thousand years, civilizations on the southern Pacific coast and deep in the highlands developed inventive irrigation structures, created pottery techniques andadvanced weaving and built impressive adobe pyramids, temples, fortresses and cities. . Early people built mysterious cylindrical towers and even more enigmatic Nazca traces, giant drawings of animals and symbols somehow etched into the desert plains for eternity. Over the course of nearly 15 centuries, pre-Incan cultures settled primarily along the Peruvian coast. and the highlands. Around 6000 BC, the Chinchero people along the desolate southern coast mummified their dead, long before the historical Egyptians had any idea. By the 1st century BC, during what is called the formative, or initial, period, Andean society had designed sophisticated irrigation canals and produced major textiles and decorative ceramics. Another important improvement is the specialization of labor, aided in large part by the development of a hierarchical society. The first known Peruvian civilization is the Chavín subculture (1200-400 BC), a theocracy that worshiped a kitty, a jaguar. -like a god, and settled in present-day Huántar, Ancash (central Peru). For eight centuries, the Chavín, who by no means developed into a military empire, unified groups of peoples across Peru. The most marvelous remnant of this way of life, known for its advances in stone carving, pottery, weaving and metalwork, is the Chavín de Huántar temple, 40 km east of Huaraz. The ceremonial center, a place of pilgrimage, contained wonderful examples of spiritual sculptures, including the Tello Obelisk and the Raimondi Stella. The temple demonstrates sophisticated engineering and hard work. A later society, the Paracas way of life (seven hundred BC – two hundred AD), settled along the southern coast. today it is renowned for its weaving of superior fabrics, considered probably the finest example of pre-Columbian textiles in the Americas. The Paracas peoples were sophisticated enough to dare to practice trepanation, a surgical operation that involved drilling holes in the skull to treat various diseases and correct cranial deformities. you can see high-quality examples of Paracas textiles and ceramics at the Julio C. Tello Museum in Paracas. The Classical period (200-1100 AD) was considered one of great social and technological development. perhaps the descendants of the Paracas, Moche and Nazca cultures are among the major cultures studied in pre-Columbian Peru. The Moche (or Mochica) civilization (2 hundred and seven hundred AD), one of the first true urban societies, dominated the valleys of the northern coast near Trujillo and conquered some smaller groups as they built their considerable empire. The Moche were a fantastically organized hierarchical civilization that created astonishing adobe platform complexes, among them the Temples of the Sun and Moon near Trujillo (the former became the largest artificial monument of its time in the Americas) and the burial site. of Sipán, near Chiclayo, in which the remains and riches of the famous Lord of Sipán, religious and maritime authority, were unearthed in remarkably preserved royal tombs (remarkably brought into existence, because they were, at the Museo de Tumbas Reales in Lambayeque). Moche pottery, built from molds, carries essential clues about their way of life, down to very specific sexual representations. Its frank depictions of phalluses, labia, and non-traditional practices in the bedroom may strike some site visitors as pre-Columbian pornography. The Rafael Larco Herrera Museum in Lima is the best.