The First Highways · Episode 2 of 12 · 20 min
Caral and the Andean Spine
On Peru's desert coast, people built monumental cities about 4,500 years ago without pottery, metal tools, or writing. Caral and its neighbors ran on exchange between coast and highlands, with cotton and dried fish moving one way and sacred red Spondylus shell the other. That trade anticipates the Andean vertical archipelago the Inca later perfected.
Who's who
- Ruth Shady SolisPeruvian archaeologist who began excavating Caral in 1994
- Jonathan HaasU.S. archaeologist; co-author of the 2001 Science radiocarbon study
- Winifred CreamerU.S. archaeologist; co-author of the 2001 Science radiocarbon study
- Michael Moseleyproposed the maritime foundations hypothesis of Andean civilization
- John Murra+1 more episodeanthropologist who named the vertical archipelago
Where it happens
- Caral, Supe Valley, Peruflagship inland city with six large platform mounds
- Aspero, Perufishing town at the mouth of the Supe
- Chavin de Huantar, Perulater pan-Andean religious center
Timeline
- c. 3500 BCEearliest monumental building appears in the region
- c. 2600 BCEmajor construction at Caral, contemporary with Egypt's Old Kingdom
- c. 2250 BCEearliest known Staff God image on a carved gourd
- c. 1800 BCECaral and the Norte Chico centers decline and are abandoned
- c. 900-200 BCEChavin inherits motifs and exchange patterns
Still debated
Scholars argue whether the coast's early societies rested on ocean protein or on irrigated farming. Isotope work suggests plant foods dominated diets, so the episode favors interdependence between sea and soil.
← PreviousThe Land Bridge Was Never a Waiting RoomNext →The Pacific Corridor: Rafts, Shell, and Metal
