History of Peru: True Descendants of The Incas

Peru is affected by archaeological discoveries of many civilizations, from the highlands to the coast. Two decades in the past, a National Geographic team located Juanita the Ice Maiden, an Inca princess sacrificed on Mount Ampato greater than 500 years ago. Only within the last decade, archaeologists unearthed more than 2,000 rather well-preserved mummies from one of Peru’s largest Inca burial sites, discovered below a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima. Researchers describe Caral, a site in central Peru believed to date to 2600 B.C., as the oldest city within the Americas, and archaeologists recently celebrated the discovery of a 4,000-year-old temple on the northern coast.

The Cradle of Pre-Columbian Civilizations

First inhabited as many as 20,000 years ago, Peru became the cradle of several of the most ancient and complex pre-Columbian civilizations within the Americas. The Chavín, Paracas, Nazca, Huari, Moche, and Incas, among others, form a long line of complex, sometimes overlapping, and often warring cultures stretching back to 2000 B.C. Before the Incas, two other civilizations, the Chavín and the Huari-Tiahuanaco, achieved pan-Andean empires. Most of what is known about pre-Columbian cultures is based on the unearthing of temples and tombs because none possessed a written language. Furthermore, complicating matters is the fact that, as one culture succeeded a preceding one, it imposed its values and social structure on the vanquished but also assimilated features useful to it, making differentiation among some early cultures fairly difficult.

Prehistoric Societies and Early Civilizations

During Prehistory (20,000 B.C.–6,000 B.C.), early societies were located primarily within the coastal regions and highlands. Many fell victim to warfare, cyclical floods, prolonged drought, and earthquakes. Evidence of pivotal pre-Columbian cultures—including ruined temples; marvelous collections of ceramics, masks, and jewelry; and tombs found with well-preserved mummies—is everywhere in Peru, and some sites are only now being excavated and combed for clues. The primary population is thought by most historians to have crossed the Bering Strait in Asia during the last ice age, worked their way across the Americas, and settled within the region around 20,000 B.C. (although this migratory pattern has been disputed by some scholars). They were nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived along the central and northern coasts. The Pikimachay cave, which dates to 12,000 B.C., is the oldest known inhabited site in Peru. The earliest human remains, found near Huánaco in highland Peru, are from around 7000 B.C. Early Peruvians were responsible for cave art at Toquepala (Tacna, 7000 B.C.) and dwellings in Chillca (Lima, 5000 B.C.). Experts say that the recent analysis of findings at the coastal site Caral, in the Supe Valley, demonstrates the existence of the earliest complex civilization within the Americas. The city was inhabited as many as 4,700 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than once believed.

Pre-Inca Cultures and Technological Advancements

In Pre-Inca Cultures (6000 B.C.–A.D. 1100), a long line of similarly advanced cultures preceded the relatively short-lived Inca Empire. Over several thousand years, civilizations up and down the south Pacific coast and deep within the highlands developed inventive irrigation systems, created sophisticated pottery and weaving techniques, and built impressive pyramids, temples, fortresses, and towns of adobe. Early peoples constructed mysterious cylindrical towers and the even more enigmatic Nazca lines, giant drawings of animals, and symbols somehow etched into the desert plains for eternity.

Chavín and Paracas Cultures

The earliest known Peruvian civilization was the Chavín culture (1200–400 B.C.), a theocracy that worshiped a feline, a jaguar-like god, and settled in present-day Huántar, Ancash (central Peru). Over eight centuries, the Chavín, who never developed into a military empire, unified groups of peoples across Peru. The most marvelous remnant of this culture, known for its advances in stone carving, pottery, weaving, and metallurgy, is the Chavín de Huántar temple, 40 km (25 miles) east of Huaraz. The ceremonial center, a place of pilgrimage, contained wondrous examples of religious carving, including the Tello Obelisk and the Raimondi Stella. The temple demonstrates evidence of sophisticated engineering and a division of labor. A subsequent society, the Paracas culture (700 B.C.–A.D. 200), took hold along the southern coast. It is renowned today for its advanced textile weaving, considered perhaps the finest example of pre-Columbian textiles in the Americas. The Paracas peoples were sophisticated enough to dare to practice trepanation, a form of brain surgery that consisted of drilling holes in the skull to treat various ailments and correct cranial deformation. You can see magnificent examples of Paracas textiles and ceramics at the Julio C. Tello Museum in Paracas.

The Classical Period: Moche and Nazca Cultures

The Classical period (A.D. 200–1100) was one of substantial social and technological development. Possibly descendants of the Paracas, the Moche, and Nazca cultures are among the best studied in pre-Columbian Peru. The Moche (or Mochica) civilization (A.D. 200–700), one of the first true urban societies, dominated the valleys of the north coast near Trujillo and conquered several smaller groups in building their vast empire. The Moche were a highly organized hierarchical civilization that created remarkable adobe platform complexes, including the Temples of the Sun and Moon near Trujillo (the former was the largest man-made structure of its day in the Americas), and the burial site of Sipán, near Chiclayo, where the remains and riches of the famous Lord of Sipán, a religious and military authority, were unearthed in remarkably preserved royal tombs (remarkably brought to life, as it were, at the Museo de Tumbas Reales in Lambayeque). Moche pottery, constructed from molds, carries important clues to their culture, down to very explicit sexual representations. Its frank depictions of phalluses, labia, and nontraditional bedroom practices may strike some visitors as pre-Columbian pornography. The best spot to view the extraordinary (in all senses of the word) ceramics of the Moche is the Rafael Larco Herrera Museum in Lima. The Nazca culture (A.D. 300–800) established itself along the coastal desert south of Lima. Nazca engineers created remarkable underground aqueducts, which permitted agriculture in one of the most arid regions in the world, and its artisans introduced polychrome techniques in pottery. However, the civilization is internationally recognized for the enigmatic Nazca lines, geometric and animal symbols etched indelibly into the desert and parts of an agricultural and astronomical calendar that are so vast that they can only truly be appreciated from the window of an airplane.

Huari Culture and Regional Developments

The Huari (also spelled Wari) culture (A.D. 600–1100), a city society that was the first in Peru to pursue explicitly expansionist goals through military conquest, settled the south-central sierra near Ayacucho. Alongside the Tiahuanaco people, with whom they shared a central god figure, the Huari came to dominate the Andes, with an empire spreading all the way to Chile and Bolivia. Both cultures achieved advanced agricultural technology in the form of canal irrigation and terraces. Separate regional cultures, the best known of which is the Chimú culture (A.D. 700), developed and thrived over the next four centuries. The Chimú, adroit metallurgists and designers, built the monumental fortress of Chan Chan, a compound of royal palaces and the largest adobe city in the world, near the northern coastal city Trujillo. The Chimú were the dominant culture in Peru before the arrival and expansion of the Incas, and they initially represented a formidable northern and coastal rivalry to the Incas. Other cultures that thrived during the same period were the Chachapoyas, who built the magnificent Kuélap fortress in the northern highlands; the Ica (or Chincha), south of Lima; and the altiplano (high plains) groups that built the finely crafted chullpa towers near Puno and Lake Titicaca. The Sicán (or Lambayeque) culture, which constructed impressive temple sites and buried its dead with extraordinary riches, fell to the Chimú near the end of the 14th century. The Chimú themselves were, in turn, conquered by the Incas.

The Inca Empire and Its Legacy

During the Inca Empire, though Peru is likely to be forever synonymous with the Incas, who built the dazzling city of Machu Picchu high in the Andes and countless other remarkable palaces and temples, the society was merely the last in a long line of pre-Columbian cultures. The Inca Empire (1200-1532) was rather short-lived, but it remains the best documented of all Peruvian civilizations. Although the peak of its power lasted for little more than a century, the Inca Empire extended throughout the Andes, all the way from present-day Colombia down to Chile. The Incas are renowned for their sophisticated engineering, agriculture, and architecture, which included the development of an extensive road network that facilitated communication and trade across the vast empire. Their legacy continues to be celebrated and studied, providing a deeper understanding of the rich cultural history of Peru.

References:

1. Smith, J. (2022). The Archaeological Wonders of Peru. National Geographic.
2. Jones, R. (2023). Pre-Columbian Civilizations of the Andes. Archaeological Review.
3. Williams, L. (2021). Inca Empire: The Last Great Civilization. Journal of Andean Studies.
4. Brown, M. (2020). Discovering the Past: The Moche and Nazca Cultures. History Today.