The Norte Chico and the Peruvian Preceramic

ever wondered what the oldest civilization in the Americas is how far back do you have to go to find the most ancient cities in the Americas while most people know about the earliest cities in Eurasia not many people realize that there are very ancient civilizations in the new world contemporary with some of the most ancient civilizations in the old world let's turn back the clock as far as we can go almost 5000 years we're heading to the Peruvian coast an unassuming and forgotten cradle of civilization although the Peruvian coast is much more famous for the empires that spanned it like the wari the chimú and Inca it's also where we find the first civilizations in the Americas these civilizations were not just a short-lived aberration but laid important cultural and political foundations that would last throughout pre-columbian history the Andean Coast in Peru might be one of the last places you'd expect to find a cradle of civilization the coast itself is a barren desert where hardly any rain falls the region is prone to volcanoes earthquakes and very destructive El Nino storms this desert quickly gives way to the andes themselves which rise to shear and dizzying altitudes it may look like a rough place at first glance but a closer look at the map reveals something important the Andes are the source of several rivers that cut through the desert down to the Pacific coast like the Nile in Egypt these provide sources of water for irrigation and agriculture on top of this the waters off the Peruvian coast are some of the richest in the world and are teeming with fish and aquatic life it is this paradoxical geography that will set the stage for the first American civilizations the earliest people in the Andes were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who had learned to take advantage of these different environments they could follow the camelids they hunted into the highlands in the summer and then retreat to the lowlands when the winter arrived by the way a camel it is a catch-all term for llamas alpacas vicunas and guanacos along the coast these hunter-gatherers could fish and forage in the mangrove swamps that formed at the mouth of the various rivers this lifestyle began to change at about 6000 BCE when Indian peoples and the Highlands began to herd and raise camelids giving them a source of meat and wool 2,000 years later people in the valleys were beginning to grow peppers lucuma and gourds other crops such as squash avocados peanuts cotton and corn would eventually be cultivated as well all these specialized occupations allowed a diverse economy to slowly develop with different regions trading crops marine products and camelids is needed woven textiles that would later become such a fixture in andean cultures began to appear in burials in the fourth millennium BCE we see the first ceremonial mound constructions by small communities such as this one at Huaca Prieta by about 3,000 BCE the Andean coastal valleys were dotted by small farming communities and fishing villages throughout their northern and southern coasts even in the highlands sites such as Lago gada and Kitaj have their beginnings during this time Kitaj itself contains some of the earliest religious iconography in the Americas so it's a pretty noteworthy sight now there's a key feature about this period in Indian history from which we derive its name at this time no pottery existed on the peruvian coast ceramics did exist elsewhere in the Americas but not here not now it should be no surprise then that this period is called the pre ceramic era you may find it odd that civilization could develop without pottery but indeed it did to examine this in a bit more depth let's zoom into the Fortaleza Pavelka whare and supe valleys in Peru Central Coast here's where we find some of the earliest cities in the Americas you see in 3000 BC something happened across these valleys that would propel them into a full-blown civilization with monumental architecture organized religion agriculture and complex social hierarchies what would emerge is the main focus of our episode the Norte Chico civilization before we go further it's important to note a few things first of all the Norte Chico is not the only pre ceramic civilization in Peru but they are the best researched and thus the best one for us to examine in detail second Nordo Chico is obviously not the name that these people would have called themselves or their civilization in an ideal world we could refer to them by the names they called themselves but because there are no written or oral records from this time we have had to invent a name for them finally nor do chico is not the term agreed upon by everyone if you read English literature on the subject it's generally referred to as Norte Chico but if you read Spanish literature or travel to Peru to visit any of these sites it'll be called coral or coral soup a civilization in this video I will stick to the term noir to Chico but just remember that you may see other terms used elsewhere but why fishing and why there and then there are plenty of other populated valleys along the coast why does such cultural and social complexity explode in this tiny area and nowhere else for centuries well the answer to that which you're probably not expecting is cotton really still scratching your head so we associate cotton with clothing and while yes cotton was used for clothing it had another important use for coastal life fishing nets until the advent of cotton fishing nets have been made from plant bast fibres and while these fibers work very well for fishing nets they are extremely labor-intensive to make and maintain cotton is much easier to work with and Nets can be made much bigger and much faster out of cotton areas that could exploit farmland for cotton production could in turn exploit maritime resources much more intensively just up the supe River at the inland site of corral cotton was being grown in abundance and this was being exchanged for maritime goods from a spur oh it was a rich and productive relationship for other areas on the coast that could not or did not cultivate cotton archaic lifestyles persisted even as the Norte Chico culture blah and the maritime foundation hypothesis is looking pretty compelling but does it really hold up yeah that's a tricky question further excavations in the Nordic Chico area have painted a more complicated picture and many archaeologists argue against this theory nowadays while cotton certainly provided an avenue to a rich seafood diet it wasn't the only crop that the people of the Nordic Chico civilization were cultivating they were growing other crops such as squash and beans and peppers to augment their diet evidence of corn has been found but interestingly it does not appear to have dominated the local diet noticeably absent as well our potatoes both of these are going to become staple crops of future Indian civilizations but at this time their presence is muted or completely absent irrigation ditches off of the rivers have been discovered and these show that these crops were being cultivated on a sophisticated scale later simple terraces would also appear on the hillsides clearly seafood was not the only thing on the nordic Chico menu there's also considerable debate about which communities arose first the coastal fishing sites are the inland farming sites regardless of how exactly the Norte Chico were propelled they grew quickly and ascended to new heights Norte Chico sites show a thriving and bustling economy with access to distant goods spondylus shells wood medicinal plants semi-precious stones and other goods from the north coast the Highlands and even beyond the Andes have been discovered at various sites showing the incredible trade relations that they maintained but perhaps the most compelling symbol of Norte Chico achievement is their urban architecture and design to get a good glimpse of this let's return to corral the most well known city of the Norte Chico korra was first excavated in the 1990s by peruvian archaeologist ruth shady solis with assistance from the peruvian army thanks to years of research and tireless work coral has been brought to international fame and today it's a unesco world heritage site if you happen to be in Peru you can stop by and visit because it's open to tourists it should be noted that Corral is not the biggest nor the oldest of these sites but it's among the best preserved and studied and so we're gonna examine it in a bit more detail the site is very old carbon dating has put the initial settlement around 2800 BC with the monuments being constructed centuries later excavations at the site have been very fruitful and have really helped our understanding of the Norte Chico Corral like other sites in the area has several mounds and pyramids and sunken circular plazas these plazas provided a public space for hundreds of people to engage in communal and religious ceremonies just like an amphitheater these features such as raised platforms topped with temples and homes and sunken courts are going to be mainstays in Indian architecture we're gonna be seeing them again and when we do remember that these sites are the earliest instance of this architecture in South America this is not strictly an order chico feature you can also see them at other sites such as El Paraiso and la quwata these mounds are massive constructions Corral's largest pyramid the pyramid maior covers an area the size of four football fields and rises more than four stories tall these pyramids and mounds would have been topped with elite houses or temples keep in mind that these pyramids were built around the same time that the Pharaohs commissioned their own pyramids in ancient Egypt even if they aren't as big as the pyramids of Egypt they're still no less impressive in its heyday coral would have awed anyone who saw it so how did the people of Norte Chico build these structures unlike the pyramids of Egypt whose construction methods remain enigmatic we know exactly how these pyramids were built workers collected rocks and stone and then carried them in read bags called chakras at the site they would stack them and then create walls once these were done the pyramids would have been coated in mortar and plaster interestingly these SheiKra bags are what allow us to date the pyramid so well because they're organic and thus they can be carbon-dated now construction on this scale requires careful planning by an authority over a long period of time some leader or governing body had to be able to organize a huge workforce and then supervise it in the construction of these mounds either by force persuasion or payment because of this there must have been a complex society with a hierarchy though no single political entity appears to have ever dominated the entire Norte Chico area while it's certainly possible that the elite could have ruled through force it's unlikely none of the Norte Chico sites have any walls or defensive architecture or any evidence of warfare at all for that matter from what we can tell the Norte Chico was peaceful and it's unlikely that the people were coerced into these building programs a much more likely system of rule would be a theocracy religion bound everyone together and it could readily be used as a basis of power and authority and while we're talking about religion we should note that these sites weren't just towns and cities but that they fulfilled important religious functions temples were the destinations for people who would make offerings to the gods in one mounted asper oh the waka de los sacrificios archaeologists found the remains of offerings to the gods consisting of textiles beads burnt seeds and carved wood another mound at the site the waka de los cielos contains small unbaked clay female figurines perhaps the most important discovery in the Norte Chico area though is the very first representation we have of a God in all of the Americas this figure which was found on a fragment of a gourd dating back to 2250 BCE shows a deity holding two staffs ladies and gentlemen may I introduce to you the staff God in his first known public appearance I hope you weren't expecting da Vinci but this is a big deal to anyone familiar with the Andean pantheon this deity is instantly recognizable there isn't much to say about him here except that this unique iconography is going to persist all the way to Inca times here he is 1500 years later in shivahn de huantar and centuries later all the way in Tiahuanaco Bolivia he's still chugging now to be fair that date I gave you is not universally accepted some experts have speculated that this is a later carving on a preserved gourd which could very well be the case however if the image really is as old as the gourd it's an invaluable glimpse into the Norte Chico religion will discuss the staff got in more detail in later episodes when we have much more reliable evidence for him although the evidence of religion in the pre ceramic is limited it does show us that people were practicing religious rituals that would be carried on by later Indian cultures now switching gears another important discovery back at Corral that is pretty mind-blowing to me is the earliest known khipu in case you're wondering what a khipu is a ooh is a record-keeping device made up of a series of knotted ropes again if you're familiar with Incan civilization you already know this key pose could be used to record lots of information such as dates censuses inventories taxes and so on they were extremely versatile in recording and relay information to those that could read them so much so that people have even argued that they represent a full writing system this khipu from corral is by far the oldest keep whoever found and it means that the norte chico had a way to record data and store information for later use and that this technology so often associated with the inca is far older than anyone ever expected as impressive as the nordic chico sites are they aren't alone nor are they even the oldest i've already mentioned the sights of lago gotta and el paraiso in passing el paraiso is an important site with pyramids and sunken courts just like the nordic chico sites to the north it's also notable for having its pyramids and Plaza in AU shape which is something that we're gonna see again in subsequent Andean civilizations but these are not the only contemporaries recent excavations in the Kozma and Lumbo ek valleys to the north have revealed large ruins dating back to the priests Aram ik unfortunately work on these sites is still ongoing so we don't know as much as we would like to about these sites and certainly not as much as we know about the nordic chico sites but we do know that Szczecin bajo in the cosmo valley predates corral by 500 years it even has a circular sunken court just like the other Norte Chico sites the earliest one ever found this is one of the cool things about this topic new research is always changing our understanding of the pre ceramic period it makes you wonder what else is buried beneath the desert out there once there were probably many many more sites but a lot have been destroyed by later development and reuse in fact in 2013 one of the pyramids at El Paraiso was completely bulldozed by developers thankfully the police were able to intervene and save the rest of the site but it's gone forever now hopefully as more research gets published and the public becomes more aware of these sites they'll get the attention and research they deserve between 2000 and 1800 BCE the pre ceramic began to close followed by the initial period at this time Peruvian civilizations began to change many people were moving away from the coast further inland to farm with the aid of new advances in irrigation and the invention of pottery pottery made it much easier for people to store and cook food and completely change the Andean lifestyle it allowed people to rely more on agriculture than ever before and as a result large populations began to move inland between 2000 and 1600 BCE the great city of corral was finally abandoned the citizens painted their buildings black and moved out no one is certain why the city was vacated after almost a thousand years but famine and droughts are strong possibilities in other areas such as the Kozma Bali new powers arose and with them the first signs of warfare and conquest public religious imagery and sophisticated religious traditions appear at the site of shebeen de huantar but these are for later episodes so many facets of future civilizations such as monumental stone architecture religion urban design record-keeping on kiba's irrigation and terracing and timekeeping all have their roots in the pre ceramic era they were just as important to future Indian civilizations as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia word of Western civilization one thing that makes ancient Peru all the more impressive is their complete isolation from any other cradle of civilization you see most of these cradles have some degree of contact with each other a good example is again ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia both regions were nearby and in contact with each other and therefore they could exchange goods ideas and technologies none of that existed in Peru though for this reason pre ceramics civilizations in Peru like the Norte Chico are often referred to as a pristine civilization all their advances as far as we can tell were wholly original no one showed them how to build a pyramid or how to create irrigation they figured it out themselves during the pre ceramic in society on the andean coast underwent profound change simple nomadic or semi semi communities dependent on hunting and gathering gradually evolved into sedentary and urban societies and these changes weren't temporary they lasted and endured the next time that you read about the Inca the Moche or the chimú think about what we've learned here and you'll begin to notice the long shadow cast by the pre ceramic period I hope you've enjoyed learning about this topic which I believe is often neglected and should be appreciated a little more take care and don't forget to Like and subscribe for more ancient American content you

Channel: Ancient Americas

Views: 45,425

Rating: 4.9634037 out of 5

Keywords: Peru, norte chico, norte, chico, preceramic, pre-ceramic, ancient, america, ancient america, ancient americas, Caral, Caral-Supe, Supe

Id: 0aSe1Q-asr4

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 16 2020