Whatever delights modern day Peru holds for the intrepid traveller or resident, it can claim to be the site of one of the oldest complex civilisations on Earth.  It was at the beginning of the 20th century that a site was discovered at the coastal site of Aspero in the north of the country.  No actual research occurred at the site until the 1940s and in fact it wasn’t in fact until the 1970s that the importance of the ruins were at last recognised.

Further inland at Caral, more evidence was discovered which led researchers to the decision that this was the ancient home of an extremely old civilisation, one that dated back to around 9000BC.  It finally ceased to exist around 7000 years later for reasons which probably revolved around food resources and societal breakdown.

Norte Chico site at Caral

During it’s heyday (from about 2500BC to 1800BC) though, the Norte Chico civilisation inhabited a densely populated area in the north of modern day Peru.  It is recognised as one of only six areas in the world in which the civilisation developed independently of outside influences and was a fairly unlikely region for population growth.  Irrigation was developed here to provide the large, arid areas a water supply in which to grow food, although a maritime diet seems to have been the main food supply.

It was a theocratic society, which means that there was a loose hierarchy of control which emanated from a group of elites. Only in a society with a level of order and some sort of reward for the population can structures of the type which exist here be constructed.  They consist of huge platformed mounds and vast sunken, circular plazas which demonstrate quite obviously the organisational abilities and logistic qualities of this ancient society.

Archaeologists are still not entirely sure why the Norte Chico ultimately declined; population growth can easily lead to food resource pressures which in turn result in infighting and hoarding.  That’s just one possible ending of course and perhaps further research will reveal what led to the decline of the Norte Chico.