Norte Chico civilization

Norte Chico was a complex pre-Columbian-era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BC, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area. The most impressive achievement of the civilization was its monumental architecture, including large earthwork platform mounds and sunken circular plazas.

About Norte Chico civilization in brief

The Norte Chico civilization was a complex pre-Columbian-era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BC, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area. It is from 3100 BC onward that large-scale human settlement and communal construction become clearly apparent. The most impressive achievement of the civilization was its monumental architecture, including large earthwork platform mounds and sunken circular plazas. Archaeologists have been aware of ancient sites in the area since at least the 1940s; early work occurred at Aspero on the coast, a site identified as early as 1905, and later at Caral further inland. In the late 1990s, Peruvian archaeologists, led by Ruth Shady, provided the first extensive documentation of the Northeast Chico. The dating of the Norte. Chico sites has pushed back the estimated beginning date of complex societies in the Peruvian region by more than one thousand years. The Chavín culture, circa 900 BC, had long been considered the first civilization of the area. It is still regularly cited as such in general works. The discovery has also shifted the focus of research away from the highland areas of the Andes and lowlands adjacent to the mountains to the Per Peru littoral, or coastal regions.

The region is extremely arid, bounded by two rain shadows. The development of widespread irrigation from these water sources is seen as decisive in the emergence of NorteChico; since all of the monumental architecture at various sites has been found close to 1095 BC, the oldest date of human settlement during the Early Archaic era is 9210 BC. Two dates of 3700 BC are associated with communal construction, but are likely to be anomalous. The earliest date securely associated with a city is securely with a 3500BC date, suggesting that the earliest form of architecture is associated with 3200 BC, and possibly before 3,200 BC. The Peruvian littoran appears an \”improbable, even aberrant\” candidate for the \”pristine\” development of civilization, compared to other world centers. The three principal valleys cover only 1,800 km², and research has emphasized the density of the population centers. The area is roughly 150 to 200 km north of Lima, roughly bounded by the Lurín Valley on the south and the Casma Valley onThe north. It comprises four coastal valleys: the Huaura, Supe, Pativilca, andFortaleza; known sites are concentrated in the latter three, which share a common coastal plain. These river valleys each have large clusters of sites. The alternative name, Caral-Supe, is derived from the city of Caral in the Supe Valley, a large and well-studied Norto Chico site.

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