The most notable of the Norte Chico cities is Caral in the Supe Valley: Caral excavations were begun in 1994 by Ruth Shady Solís, a Peruvian anthropologist and archeologist. She is also founder and director of the Archeological project Caral.
The ruins of Caral are located in an arid region, but with nearby rivers, some 14 miles from the coast and 120 miles north of Peru’s modern capital city of Lima. Caral was inhabited between 2627 B.C. and 2020 B.C. and its land area was about 150 acres. Caral city was comprised of six pyramids (or platform mounds), two plazas, an amphitheatre, and ordinary houses. The population is estimated to have been about 3,000. The living arrangement seems to have been large, well kept rooms atop the pyramids for the elite, ground-level complexes for craftsmen, and shabbier outlying shantytowns for workers.
The Norte Chico people were apparently very peaceful people, no evidence exists of weapons or defensive fortifications, and no evidence exists of Human sacrifice. In one of the pyramids they uncovered 32 flutes made of condor and pelican bones and 37 cornets made of deer and llama bones, also found was a primitive quipu. It is speculated that the city sustained itself by cotton farming; this was accomplished by building canals to irrigate cotton fields with river water. This cotton was then used to make textiles such as fishing nets, carry bags, and clothing. These textiles where in turn used to trade for seafood from the coast and produce from the interior, the civilization apparently had wide-ranging trade contacts.
The largest pyramid of Caral is Pirámide Mayor; which is 450 ft. By 500 ft. and 60 ft. tall. A 30-foot-wide staircase rises from a sunken circular plaza at the foot of the pyramid, passing over three terraced levels until it reaches the top of the platform. The platform top contains the remains of an atrium and a large fireplace.
Evidence suggests that the pyramids were built by stuffing reed bags filled with stones gathered from hillside quarry’s and riverbanks against a retaining wall. This process was repeated until the mound had reached the desired dimensions and height. Although analysis is not available, the retaining walls appear to be made of random sized stones bonded together with mortar (probably lime and sand). It was the remains of the reed bags that provided the material for radiocarbon dating of the sites, the oldest of these bags, was dated to 2627 B.C.
It was the remains of the reed bags that provided the material for radiocarbon dating of the sites, the oldest of these bags, was dated to 2627 B.C. By 1800 B.C, the Norte Chico civilization began to decline, the circumstances and final time of its decline is unknown. It would be another thousand years before the appearance of the next great Peruvian culture, the Chavín.
