An Introduction to Caral
November 14, 2007
Caral is one of 20 sites thought to be part of the oldest civilisation in Peru and all of the Americas at over 5000 years old. Along the Supe river valley, 5200 years ago, dozens of roaming family groups surviving day to day on what they could find to eat banded together to form a new kind of social group which began pooling their energies and sharing the burden of gathering food and surviving. Here in South America, at the same time as the peoples in the Nile valley were doing the same, one of the first civilisations was formed.
Caral is located roughly 184 kilometres from Lima, about 23 kilometres in from the coast. It was here that Ruth Shady Solís, a Peruvian archaeologist decided to ignore what others thought about strange but some-what natural looking mounds in the desert, that they were natural, or at best part of the much more modern ruins nearby and thus of little importance. After a huge amount of work, she has proven the existence of a number of large pyramids and possibly the origins of civilisation the Peru.
The video below explains further:
In the next two blogs
- Interview with Ruth Shady
- My visit to the city of Caral and more about the civilisation.
Comments (6)
so apparently war is a priviledge of ‘advanced’ civililations, where did it all go wrong?
interesting post. i’m going to be in lima sometime in january and i thought about visiting. would you consider this a 2-day trip? are there guides and people to show around? it seems relatively unexplored.
It used to be relatively unexplored, now there are maybe 100 visitors per day. So unexplored, no. Unvisited, yes.
Visitors must now follow a guide, included in the entrance fee. You could make it a two-day stay, spending some time in Huacho but it wouldnt be completely neccessary. 2-3 hours is more than enough to see what you are allowed to see.
See my blog on the ruins of the Lurin valley for something completely unexplored.
Search “Ruins of the Lurin Valley”