Caral–Supe civilization

Caral–Supe (also known as Caral and Norte Chico) was a complex Pre-Columbian era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Caral region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BCE, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BCE, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area.^[1] From 3100 BCE onward, large-scale human settlement and communal construction become clearly apparent.^[2] This lasted until a period of decline around 1800 BCE.^[3] Since the early 21st century, it has been recognized as the oldest-known civilization in America, and as one of the six sites where civilization separately originated in the ancient world.^[4]

This civilization flourished along three rivers, the Fortaleza, the Pativilca, and the Supe. These river valleys each have large clusters of sites. Farther south, there are several associated sites along the Huaura River.^[5] The name Caral–Supe is derived from the city of Caral^[6] in the Supe Valley, a large and well-studied Caral–Supe site.

Complex society in the Caral–Supe arose a millennium after Sumer in Mesopotamia, was contemporaneous with the Egyptian pyramids, and predated the Mesoamerican Olmecs by nearly two millennia.

In archaeological nomenclature, Caral–Supe is a pre-ceramic culture of the pre-Columbian Late Archaic; it completely lacked ceramics and no evidence of visual art has survived. The most impressive achievement of the civilization was its monumental architecture, including large earthwork platform mounds and sunken circular plazas. Archaeological evidence suggests use of textile technology and, possibly, the worship of common deity symbols, both of which recur in pre-Columbian Andean civilizations. Sophisticated government is presumed to have been required to manage the ancient Caral. Questions remain over its organization, particularly the influence of food resources on politics.

Archaeologists have been aware of ancient sites in the area since at least the 1940s; early work occurred at Aspero on the coast, a site identified as early as 1905,^[7] and later at Caral, farther inland. In the late 1990s, Peruvian archaeologists, led by Ruth Shady, provided the first extensive documentation of the civilization with work at Caral.^[8] A 2001 paper in Science, providing a survey of the Caral research,^[9] and a 2004 article in Nature, describing fieldwork and radiocarbon dating across a wider area,^[2] revealed Caral–Supe's full significance and led to widespread interest.^[10]