#caralsupecivilization

[redmaps]

#Peru #cradleofcivilization #incas #nortechicoperu #mochevalley #caralsupecivilization custom map for the @sbmuseart Travel Dept tour. https://www.instagram.com/p/CjBYoRyuRwh/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[addisuns]

(pictured: Terraced construction of pyramid at Caral, with stone fill) The Norte Chico civilization (also Caral or Caral-Supe civilization)was a complex pre-Columbian society that included as many as 30 major population centers in what is now the Norte Chico region of north-central coastal Peru. Since the early 21st century, it has been established as the oldest known civilization in the Americas and one of the six sites where civilization originated independently in the ancient world. It flourished between 3rd and 1st millennia BC. The alternative name, Caral-Supe, is derived from the Sacred City of Caral in the Supe Valley, a large and well-studied Norte Chico site. Complex society in Norte Chico arose a millennium after Sumer in Mesopotamia, was contemporaneous with the Egyptian pyramids, and predated the Mesoamerican Olmec by nearly two millennia. Norte Chico sites are notable for exceptional collective density, as well as individual size. Haas argues that the density of sites in such a small area is globally unique for a nascent civilization. During the third millennium BC, Norte Chico may have been the most densely populated area of the world (excepting, possibly, northern China). The Supe, Pativilca, and Fortaleza valleys each have large clusters of sites, with a single site found on the Huaura River. #nortechico #caralsupe #caralsupecivilization #olmec