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Peru Pre-Inca Cultures
The first great conquest of Andean space began some
10,000
years ago when the descendants of the original migrants
who
crossed the land bridge over what is now the Bering
Straits
between the Asian and American continents reached northern
South
America. Over the next several millennia, hunter-gatherers
fanned
out from their bridgehead at Panama to populate the whole
of
South America. By about 2500 B.C., small villages
inhabited by
farmers and fishermen began to spring up in the fertile
river
valleys of the north coast of Peru.
These ancient Peruvians lived in simple adobe houses,
cultivated potatoes and beans, fished in the nearby sea,
and grew
and wove cotton for their clothing. The catalyst for the
development of the more advanced civilizations that
followed was
the introduction of a staple annual crop--maize (corn),
and the
development of irrigation, both dating from around the
thirteenth
century B.C. The stabilization of the food supply and
ensuing
surplus formed the foundation for the development of the
great
civilizations that rose and fell across the Andes for more
than a
thousand years prior to the arrival of the Europeans.
The Incas, of course, were only the most recent of
these
highly developed native American cultures to evolve in the
Andes.
The earliest central state to emerge in the northern
highlands
(that is, a state able to control both highland and
coastal
areas) was the Kingdom of Chavín, which emerged in the
northern
highlands and prospered for some 500 years between 950
B.C. and
450 B.C. Although it was originally thought by Julio C.
Tello,
the father of Peruvian archaeology, to have been "the womb
of
Andean civilization," it now appears to have had Amazonic
roots
that may have led back to Mesoamerica.
Chavín was probably more of a religious than political
panAndean phenomenon. It seems to have been a center for the
missionary diffusion of priests who transmitted a
particular set
of ideas, rituals, and art style throughout what is now
northcentral Peru. The apparent headquarters for this religious
cult
in all likelihood was Chavín de Huantar in the Ancash
highlands,
whose elaborately carved stone masonry buildings are among
the
oldest and most beautiful in South America. The great,
massive
temple there, oriented to the cardinal points of the
solstice,
was perceived by the people of Chavín to be the center of
the
world, the most holy and revered place of the Chavín
culture.
This concept of God and his elite tied to a geographical
location
at the center of the cosmos--the idea of spatial
mysticism--was
fundamental to Inca and pre-Inca beliefs.
After the decline of the Chavín culture around the
beginning
of the Christian millennium, a series of localized and
specialized cultures rose and fell, both on the coast and
in the
highlands, during the next thousand years. On the coast,
these
included the Gallinazo, Mochica, Paracas, Nazca, and Chimú
civilizations. Although each had their salient features,
the
Mochica and Chimú warrant special comment for their
notable
achievements.
The Mochica occupied a 136-kilometer-long expanse of
the
coast from the Río Moche Valley and reached its apogee
toward the
end of the first millennium A.D. They built an impressive
irrigation system that transformed kilometers of barren
desert
into fertile and abundant fields capable of sustaining a
population of over 50,000. Without benefit of the wheel,
the
plough, or a developed writing system, the Mochica
nevertheless
achieved a remarkable level of civilization, as witnessed
by
their highly sophisticated ceramic pottery, lofty
pyramids, and
clever metalwork. In 1987 near Sipán, archaeologists
unearthed an
extraordinary cache of Mochica artifacts from the tomb of
a great
Mochica lord, including finely crafted gold and silver
ornaments,
large, gilded copper figurines, and wonderfully decorated
ceramic
pottery. Indeed, the Mochica artisans portrayed such a
realistic
and accurately detailed depiction of themselves and their
environment that we have a remarkably authentic picture of
their
everyday life and work.
Whereas the Mochica were renowned for their realistic
ceramic
pottery, the Chimú were the great city-builders of
pre-Inca
civilization. As loose confederation of cities scattered
along
the coast of northern Peru and southern Ecuador, the Chimú
flourished from about 1150 to 1450. Their capital was at
Chan
Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo. The largest
pre-Hispanic
city in South America at the time, Chan Chan had 100,000
inhabitants. Its twenty square kilometers of precisely
symmetrical design was surrounded by a lush garden oasis
intricately irrigated from the Río Moche several
kilometers away.
The Chimú civilization lasted a comparatively short period
of
time, however. Like other coastal states, its irrigation
system,
watered from sources in the high Andes, was apparently
vulnerable
to cutoff or diversion by expanding highland polities.
In the highlands, both the Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco)
culture,
near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, and the Wari (Huari)
culture, near
the present-day city of Ayacucho, developed large urban
settlements and wide-ranging state systems between A.D.
500 and
A.D. 1000. Each exhibited many of the aspects of the
engineering
ingenuity that later appeared with the Incas, such as
extensive
road systems, store houses, and architectural styles.
Between
A.D. 1000 and 1450, however, a period of fragmentation
shattered
the previous unity achieved by the Tiwanaku-Wari stage.
During
this period, scores of different ethnic-based groups of
varying
sizes dotted the Andean landscape. In the central and
southern
Andes, for example, the Chupachos of Huánuco numbered some
10,000, while the Lupacas on the west bank of Lake
Titicaca
comprised over 100,000.
Data as of September 1992
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