Who Were The Shark Hunters of Ancient Peru? // New Insights From Archaeology

[Music] when we think of ancient peru usually the first culture that springs to mind must surely be the inca empire builders of the high andes who sallied forth from their mountain strongholds in the 1400s to conquer all the lands from north to south of the continent creating an astonishing culture in the process only to fall to the swords horses and guns of spanish conquistadors in the 16th century [Music] yet those inca were by no means the only high culture to arise in the southern portion of the western hemisphere from as early as the 4th millennium bc five or six thousand years before complex city building civilizations arose on the face of it in some of the most unlikely conditions imaginable framed by inhospitable deserts and towering mighty mountain chains at the same time as the ancient sumerian cities of ur and uruk homeland of gilgamesh enjoyed their golden age in what is now iraq worshipers here on the other side of the world in clear view of the blue pacific went about their business at the similarly mighty cities of corral aspero el parasio and many more city-states of the enigmatic norte chico civilization discovered only a few decades ago and still mostly a mystery today astonishingly during the third millennium bc at the same time as the god kings of ancient egypt erected colossal monuments to their own glory pyramids were built here in peru massive adobe constructions that have mostly long since eroded away due to wind rain and human activity scant fragments only surviving by chance and luck yet survive they do hundreds having been located so far spanning many thousands of years no doubt many more will be found as the decades and centuries go on absolutely baffling in their complexity sophistication and sheer age [Music] strange amphitheater-like constructions are found too all over the peruvian landscape spanning millennia after millennia [Music] with no written sources and very little archaeology to speak of simply no one knows what they were used for what makes these most ancient of discoveries all the more captivating of course is the fact that these people at first at least during their earliest phases may not have adopted agriculture at all just maybe making their living and building their food surplus which enabled the development of a socially stratified society on the bounty of the sea for the waters of the arid plains of peru are some of the most abundant in all the world just maybe giving a hint of the origins of civilization in this corner of the world oh hello didn't see you there i just wanted to give a quick shout out to the sponsor of this video it's magellan tv the premier documentary streaming service on the web for just a small monthly fee you can find thousands of documentaries on almost any subject you can think of streamed directly to your phone your tablet and your smart tv this is technology the ancient pyramid builders of peru would be amazed by my current recommendation is one concerning those other famous pyramid builders the lives of the pharaohs a 13-part collection of documentaries diving deep into the fascinating world of ancient egypt i've teamed up with the guys at magellan to offer you an exclusive month-long free trial head on over to tri dot magellan dot forward slash pete kelly history or click on my link in the description below now back to the ancient world evidence of pre-columbian fish farming can be found all over the continent in the 1530s when passing down the amazon river for the first time spanish conquistadors witnessed industrial scale turtle farming creating a massive surplus from very little work in florida evidence of similarly massive man-made fisheries has been found and in peru due to the unique climate the natural world provided immense bounties too often without even needing the helping hand of humans here the extremely cold waters of the humboldt current create perfect conditions for a uniquely prosperous diverse fishery that today is still one of the world's most bountiful we know from archaeology the deep sea fishing was vital in ancient times too so crucial that for coastal societies it formed an integral part of both ritual life and their world view of course agriculture was adopted fairly early on yet for the ancient fisher people of the peruvian deserts living in a scattering of fertile valleys along the foreboding plain broken up only occasionally by mighty man-made geoglyphs of the ancients built for who knows what reason from the time of the norte chico all the way to the spanish conquest the bounty of the sea remained integral to everything suffusing the very world view of these people entering into art and iconography though the art of the norte chico has long since disappeared that of later peoples survives even far inland depicting all manner of sea monsters and fisher heroes yet that same weather system that nurtured complex societies in good times was devastating during lena once a cyclical rising and falling of civilization here going hand in hand with devastating droughts and famines caused by the so-called el nino freak weather events lasting decades [Music] very much still happen today just in the last few years evidence found at a nearly 2 000 year old ritual site is beginning to shed light on one fascinating era a time of growth and transition for both the coasts and the hinterland for this was the beginning of the age of the moche one of the most fascinating of all pre-columbian civilizations contemporaries of the maya and arguably the latest version of the norte chico culture to arise [Music] eventual victims of the el nino the moche collapsed long before europeans ever knew of the existence of the americas [Music] to a certain extent in relative terms we know a great deal about the great lords of moche society gleaned from intact burials found in recent decades such as at sipan [Music] but these people of the coast living at places like pampa la cruz were different living far away from the major moche centers of power like their ancestors of old they still looked to the sea individuals found at this site curiously buried with extra limbs and the remains of a variety of sea creatures were shark hunters but what do we know of that world they inhabited [Music] this is el brujo known as the wizard [Music] today it may look like a weathered devastated pile of earth but this is a man-made construction just like the maya aztecs zapotecs and mishtechs the moche were pyramid builders but stone isn't as abundant here as it is in the yucatan the people here used a different material one which sadly doesn't last as well almost all the surfaces long since having disappeared when the spaniards first came here in the 16th and 17th centuries to the massive pyramids at trujillo known today as the temples of the sun and the moon they tried to destroy the place diverting a river in order to do so [Music] yet such was the skill of construction of those who had built this site and the sheer monumental size of its foundations the place simply refused to die [Music] it may look weathered now due to the harsh el nino of the desert here and the adobe makeup of its construction but once upon a time this was a huge pyramid quite possibly the largest in the entire western hemisphere and by extension the world this place was built by one of the most enigmatic of all south american peoples one whose pottery shows up in such an abundance that it outsizes every other culture in the americas [Music] perennially mired in controversy due to the rampant south american black market the poverty and therefore culture of looting in practically all of the villages towns and cities located near these massive pyramids [Music] leading to the vast majority of their artifacts disappearing into the ether this was a city of the moche one of the most sophisticated civilizations ever to arise in the americas [Music] city-states equaling or even surpassing most others in artistic skill societal complexity and population [Music] when excavated in the 1980s the first time an undisturbed moche gravesite had ever been located by archaeologists this pyramid at sipan revealed an extraordinarily complex group of rituals and people a warrior society imbued with religiosity at its very center [Music] city building military rulers sallying forth from their power centers to wage ritualistic battles out in the wilderness against the armies of neighbouring lords competing with one another for honor and favor and of course bringing defeated warriors back to the cities to be sacrificed to the gods the pyramids at sipan are just a handful scattered all along this coastline perhaps each valley ruled by independent lords a little like the mycenean rulers of bronze age greece or the italian city-states of the renaissance maybe once in a while they came together to face external threats but generally they were rivals [Music] from around 100 to around 900 a.d the moche thrived in this landscape growing in size gradually conquering or incorporating more lands integrating the old civilizations of the coast with the peoples of the hinterlands yet interestingly throughout all that history moche artists never forgot their links to the sea depicting seabourn heroes and monstrous ocean ocean-dwelling creatures these stories were probably well known 1500 years ago though even the names of the protagonists are lost today for in the centuries before the year 1000 the sacrifices of the moche became ever more brutal and desperate ultimately having failed their people the ruling elite may too have met their end at the sacrificial blade just like every other culture that ever arose on the peruvian lowlands rising and falling over the eons the moche world was destroyed by the environmental catastrophe of the el nino the region we are looking at today however is a distinct one that initially neighboured the moche eventually incorporated into their world by the 6th century a.d presumably some of them walking to their fate like these figures on the temples of the moche the people here hadn't forgotten their roots to the sea for they were shark hunters [Music] in 2019 archaeologists began excavating a stone mud brick platform on a high cliff looking out into the pacific the evidence excavated here at the ancient fishing villages of pampa la cruz provides astonishing insights into the people who once lived here platforms like these are thought to have once served as temples perhaps smaller more modest versions of the massive moche centers used by priests and important members of the community this particular platform was decorated with a typical moche painting depicting three warriors escorting two naked captives to their doom beneath the platform however something fascinating was found untouched moche era sites are extremely rare most being looted before archaeologists ever arrive their contexts lost forever there the unmistakable remains of the ocean were uncovered all heaped together perhaps in a sacrificial context nine sharks two sunfish two yellow fin tuna uncommon species on the pacific coast as well as two cogia whales some of the rarest toothed whales in the world the only examples of their kind found in south america all the animals were purposely buried here between 500 and 750 a.d evidence of a cult to the ocean perhaps that survived moche occupation here interestingly a similar example of ocean sacrifices exists in mexico 2 000 miles to the north where the aztecs buried a multitude of sea creatures around their templo mayo when it was dedicated in the 14th and 15th centuries both probably reflect shared values of animals being incredibly important powerful creatures often seen as masters gatekeepers if you will of different planes of reality as the animals here are oceanic but large ones it may show that pampa lacrosse was seen as an intercessor between the terrestrial world and the forces of the deep below and this tradition seems to have been a very old one in 2010 in the huanchako area not far away a 3500 year old temple was uncovered also containing evidence of sea creatures a large number of them sharks also found were the remains of reed boats still used by the fishermen of this region to this day the earliest evidence of which has been found at least 4 000 years ago here at gramolote inhabited between 1500 and 1200 bc clear evidence of fishing and shark hunting being integral to both domestic and ritual life has been found living not far from pyramid and mural builders in the more populated valleys nearby the people here practiced bone crafting basketry and lived in a semi-complex society everything was geared towards the ocean [Music] in total some twelve thousand sea mammal bones and twenty one thousand fish bones have been excavated here sixteen thousand of which were shark vertebrae in a number of burials human remains were found alongside shark teeth and other items from these massive animals perhaps indication of human sacrifice and a surefire sign of the importance of these animals to the people here around 1200 bc the site was apparently abandoned though by the time of its reoccupation by 400 bc the people here still heavily relied on sharks remaining symbolically important also found from this time was a high status burial known today as the fisher chief containing six metal fish hooks so big they could have been used to hunt large fish such as sharks alongside fishing lines and implements used to repair nets archaeologists have suggested that he may have had the ceremonial right perhaps obligation to hunt sharks on behalf of the village shark hunting likely being a status symbol in their society perhaps even the instigator of social stratification in the first place providing a unique glimpse into how states may have first formed in these coastal regions a ritual responsibility akin to jaguar hunting chiefs in the amazon in total the remains of 54 individuals have been found at lomas la cruz in hoanchako along with more than a hundred artifacts most of them linked to the sea covered in coastal animals such as sharks and sea lions [Music] around 30 of the individuals here were buried with additional limbs maybe a sign of high status as one thought to be a shark hunter due to the artifacts found with him was found with two additional legs [Music] soon enough after successive occupation by the chimu salinar and viru by the 6th century a.d the entire region came into the cultural world of the moche even during this time when a new settlement was built closer to the sea than the old one fishing retained its importance a common motif on moche pottery features extravagantly costumed fishermen hunting massive sea monsters from reed boats sometimes animals are identified as sharks or even chimeras fantastical creatures from mythology sea beasts with human limbs and shark jaws often the boats themselves resembling those still used today adopt animal characteristics evidence of extremely skilled hunters who made it their business to go out onto the high seas and bring back something for the terrestrial world of the shore maybe this was how the symbolism of deep sea fishing made its way into moche beliefs by incorporating the religions of fishing communities maybe it already existed in moche religion [Music] though the moche world soon died replaced by an intermediate period of new cultures the later chimu people builders of the mighty city of chanchan the largest pre-columbian settlement to survive in the americas had many similarities with their ancestors until their eventual conquest by the inca of the highlands in the 15th century today people here still live from the sea even going out in the same reed boats as their ancestors of 4 000 years before if ancient america is something that interests you then don't forget to subscribe so you can come with me to visit the place as soon as i'm able to travel internationally again i'll be making full length documentaries on my main channel history time and shorter travel journeys on here thanks for watching my name's pete kelly leave me a comment if you enjoyed the video and i'll see you next time you

Channel: Pete Kelly

Views: 17,233

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Id: GTBHj-UTETY

Length: 27min 41sec (1661 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 24 2020