Ahira's Hangar

Canals may shed light on Peru's prehistory
Oldest known ditches point to beginning of complex society

Tuesday, January 3, 2006; Posted: 9:24 p.m. EST (02:24 GMT)
LIMA, Peru (AP) -- In Peru's Andean foothills a group of archaeologists say they have found remnants of the oldest known irrigation canals in South America, which they hope will provide clues to the origin of the region's agriculturally based societies.

"There are four sites in the area that have canals that date minimally 5,300 years ago, maybe a little earlier," team leader Tom D. Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told The Associated Press.

Dillehay started his research nearly 30 years ago in the Zana Valley, 60 kilometers (37 miles) inland from the Pacific Ocean and about 620 kilometers (385 miles) northwest of Lima.

The conclusions, reported in a recent issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- a peer reviewed publication of the Washington-based National Academy of Sciences -- offer evidence, long suspected by archaeologists, that irrigation technology was critical to the development of Peru's early civilization, Dillehay said.

"The Zana Valley canals are the earliest known in South America," wrote the authors of the journal article, Dillehay, Herbert H. Eling Jr. of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico, and Jack Rossen of Ithaca College.

Daniel Morales, director of the school of archaeology at Peru's San Marcos University, said he had not seen the article, but was familiar with Dillehay's work. He said the "discovery of the Zana canals is very important because it could be linked to the first form of irrigated agriculture" in Peru.

Dillehay, in a telephone interview from Chile, said the team first discovered some of the canals and agricultural features in 1985 and dated them for the first time in 1989.

But he said his team waited until now to publish its findings to better understand the hydraulic engineering of the hunters and gatherers who made a historic break from their ancestors to tend "early gardens."

Carbon dating of the four silt-filled canals, buried under sediments, showed that they were used to irrigate cultivated fields about 5,400 years ago, in one case possibly as early as 6,700 years ago, the article said. The team found evidence of domesticated cotton, beans and squash and stone hoe-like tools near the site.

Peru was one of the only places in the world where a complex society flourished, largely independent of outside influence, at the same time the pyramids of Egypt were being built.

In recent years, Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady discovered the ruins of Caral, the earliest known city in the Americas, about 480 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of Zana. Jonathan Haas and Winifred Creamer, a Chicago-area husband-and-wife team, later documented more than 20 other major residential centers nearby with platform mounds and pyramids along the Peruvian coast, known collectively as the Norte Chico.

"Those settlements come at least 800 to 1,000 years later," Dillehay said, explaining that what his team documented are earlier pieces of the puzzle: small communities with the beginnings of "social mobility, social complexity" that over centuries "percolated" into the complex societies that followed.

"These huts and residential camp sites we have found that are above the canal, they had to share the water, first of all," he said.

"They had to keep the canals clean, so we're talking about some sense of communal labor and sharing and coordination and planning over a distance of at least two kilometers. So it's not just scattered individual households, but some initial social aggregation with communal responsibility."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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5,500-Year-Old Plaza Discovered in Peru
By Marco Aquino,Reuters
Posted: 2008-02-25 19:44:22
Filed Under: Science News
LIMA (Feb. 25) - A ceremonial plaza built 5,500 years ago has been discovered in Peru, and archeologists involved in the dig said on Monday carbon dating shows it is one of the oldest structures ever found in the Americas.

A team of archaeologists announced on Monday that they unearthed a 5,500-year-old ceremonial plaza in Casma, 229 miles north of Lima, Peru. Carbon dating shows that the plaza, found under another piece of architecture at the ruins of Sechin Bajo, above, is one of the oldest structures ever found in the Americas.

A team of Peruvian and German archeologists uncovered the circular plaza, which was hidden beneath another piece of architecture at the ruins known as Sechin Bajo, in Casma, 229 miles north of Lima, the capital. Friezes depicting a warrior with a knife and trophies were found near the plaza.

"It's an impressive find; the scientific and archeology communities are very happy," said Cesar Perez, the scientist at Peru's National Institute of Culture who supervised the project. "This could redesign the history of the country."

Prior to the discovery at Sechin Bajo, archeologists considered the ancient Peruvian citadel of Caral to be one of the oldest in the Western Hemisphere, at about 5,000 years.

Scientists say Caral, located a few hours drive from Sechin Bajo, was one of six places in the world -- along with Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India and Mesoamerica -- where humans started living in cities about 5,000 years ago.

"The dating done by the German archeologists puts it at about 5,500 years," Perez said of the plaza, which has a diameter of about 46 feet.

Earlier finds near Sechin Bajo had been dated at 3,600 years, and there may be other pieces of the citadel older than the plaza.

"We've found other pieces of architecture underneath the plaza that could be even older," German Yenque, an archeologist at the dig site, told Reuters. "There are four or five plazas deeper down, which means the structure was rebuilt several times, perhaps every 100 to 300 years."

Hundreds of archeological sites dot the country, and many of the ruined structures were built by cultures that preceded the powerful Incan empire, which reached its peak in the 16th century, just before Spanish conquerors arrived in what is now Peru.

There are so many archeological treasures that tomb robbing is a widespread problem in the Andean country.

Yenque said the scientists are filling in the site with dirt to preserve it and plan to resume excavation of the deeper floors when they get more grants to fund the project.

"We are lucky it was never destroyed by tomb robbers; that is why we are covering it up now," Yenque said.

Reporting by Marco Aquino, writing by Terry Wade, editing by Eric Walsh.


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2008-02-25 18:25:02

Archaeologist 'Strikes Gold' With Finds Of Ancient Nasca Iron Ore Mine In Peru
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2008) — A Purdue University archaeologist discovered an intact ancient iron ore mine in South America that shows how civilizations before the Inca Empire were mining this valuable ore.

"Archaeologists know people in the Old and New worlds have mined minerals for thousands and thousands of years," said Kevin J. Vaughn, an assistant professor of anthropology who studies the Nasca civilization, which existed from A.D. 1 to A.D. 750. "Iron mining in the Old World, specifically in Africa, goes back 40,000 years. And we know the ancient people in Mexico, Central America and North America were mining for various materials. There isn't much evidence for these types of mines.

"What we found is the only hematite mine, a type of iron also known as ochre, recorded in South America prior to the Spanish conquest. This discovery demonstrates that iron ores were important to ancient Andean civilizations."

In 2004 and 2005, Vaughn and his team excavated Mina Primavera, which is located in the Ingenio Valley of the Andes Mountains in southern Peru. The research team performed field checks and collected some samples in 2006 and 2007.

The researchers determined that the mine is a human-made cave that was first created around 2,000 years ago. An estimated 3,710 metric tons was extracted from the mine during more than 1,400 years of use. The mine, which is nearly 700 cubic meters, is in a cliffside facing a modern ochre mine.

Vaughn hypothesizes that the Nasca people used the red-pigmented mineral primarily for ceramic paints, but they also could have used it as body paint, to paint textiles and even to paint adobe walls. The Nasca civilization is known for hundreds of drawings in the Nasca Desert, which are known as the Nasca-Lines and can only be seen from the air, and for an aqueduct system that is still used today.

Vaughn and his team discovered a number of artifacts in the mine, including corncobs, stone tools, and pieces of textiles and pottery. The age of the items was determined by radiocarbon dating, a process that determines age based on the decay of naturally occurring elements.

"Archaeologists have a very good sequence of pottery from this region, so I can look at most pots from this region and determine a date within a century that is based on stylistic changes of the pottery," Vaughn said. "Even before the dating, we knew this was an ancient mine because of the ceramic pieces. These very small fragments, about the size of a penny, had distinct designs on them that are characteristic of the early Nasca civilization."

The artifacts from the excavation are being curated by the Instituto Nacional de Cultura of Peru at its museum in Ica, Peru.

Now that there is archaeological evidence that ancient cultures in the Andes were mining iron ore, it is important to give credit to New World civilizations, Vaughn said.

"Even though ancient Andean people smelted some metals, such as copper, they never smelted iron like they did in the Old World," he said. "Metals were used for a variety of tools in the Old World, such as weapons, while in the Americas, metals were used as prestige goods for the wealthy elite."

This excavation was part of Vaughn's Early Nasca Craft Economy Project, a multiyear National Science Foundation-funded study of Nasca ceramic production and distribution. The project's goal is to better understand the origins of inequality and political economy in this ancient culture.

Vaughn says material scientists and engineers, as well as mineralogists, will be interested in this discovery.

"This study of mining is a great example of how archaeology bridges the social and physical sciences," he said.

The National Science Foundation and the Heinz Foundation funded the Mina Primavera excavation. Next, Vaughn will be excavating a habitation site that has a 4,000-year occupation in hopes of understanding the long-term settlement history of the region.

"I hope to continue surveying for mines and mining-related sites in the region, and hopefully undertake additional excavations at the mine," he said.

The findings of the excavation are published in December's Journal of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.

Adapted from materials provided by Purdue University.