Caral Civilization, Peru

[Martin Hash]

The second most ancient world civilization is in Peru: the Caral empire which began 5000+ years ago on the coast 200 kilometers north of Lima. However, if you Google “oldest civilizations,” it doesn’t show up: that’s because it wasn’t opened to the public until 2006. That means no one learned about it in 5th grade geography or their high school world history class. I only knew about it because I would see posters on the windows of Peruvian travel agencies with fantastic aerial photographs of places that looked amazing but I’d never even heard of.



There are multiple extensive sites at Aspero, Vichama & Caral, all relatively close to the modern town of Barranca. Aspero was a public landfill until twenty years ago when excavation began. One of the pyramids was even blown up with TNT by treasure hunters in the 1970s.The visitor’s center, which is impressive in its own right, was sponsored by Finland, and Germany did the carbon dating to establish validity. I’ve been to many of the ancient archaeological sites around the world: Mexico, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Turkmenistan, Greece, etc., and saw that there’s been a lot of artistic license in their reconstruction: in contrast, our guide, who told us he’d only seen rain once in his lifetime, insisted Aspero was original, but we saw workmen excavating and building rock walls from the rubble. There’s really no other way if they want to attract tourists to 5 millennia-old mounds of dirt. Never-the-less the size, scope & implications of the area is astounding.

Aspero Visitor's Center.JPG

Visitor's Center