Archaeologists in Peru have found new evidence of how the territory's oldest known civilization America adapted and survived climate disaster without resorting to violence.
The team, led by renowned 78-year-old Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady, concluded that about 4,200 years ago, severe drought forced the population to abandon the ancient city of Caral and resettle nearby.
According to Shady, in the new settlements they left intriguing friezes depicting the victims of the famine and a message for future generations.
“They left behind all this evidence so that people would not forget that climate change was very serious, causing a crisis in the society of Karala and its civilization, and they did not want people to forget what caused it,” she said at one site where she toured a temple pyramid.
One of the places where the people of Caral made a new home was Vichama, located to the west of it, on the arid Pacific coast, where the inhabitants survived by fishing at sea and farming in the Huaura River valley.
Another settlement dating from the same period between 1800 and 1500 BC was Peniko, 10 miles east of Caral, located in the same valley of the Supe River. It was founded around the same time as early civilizations developed in the Middle East and Asia.
Archaeologists say the people of Caral carried with them to new cities their elaborate decorative techniques of temple pyramids and sunken circular plazas, which also contained new images that told the story of their survival to future generations.
One such set of images was discovered at Wicham on the walls of a temple at the top of a desert eminence. It consists of three-dimensional fresco reliefs depicting emaciated corpses with sunken bellies and protruding ribs; on the second wall above and behind are pregnant women, ritual dancers and a pair of large fish.
Above both, on a higher wall, is an almost cartoonish drawing of a toad's face appearing with human hands, struck in the head by lightning.
“After deaths, on an empty stomach, a toad appears, emerging from the Earth with lightning striking its head, as if announcing the arrival of water,” Shady said.
The drought that hit Caral may have been part of a suspected megadrought. known as 4.2kawhich, according to some archaeologists, forced people to abandon prosperous cities in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and beyond. This may have led to the collapse of many ancient civilizations.
Archaeologists have discovered up to 18 buildings in Peñico, including residential complexes, that strongly resemble the architectural style of the old town of Caral, founded approximately 800 years ago.
“What stands out most is the organization and layout of the settlement, the structure and design of the buildings,” said Mauro Ordóñez, Penico’s chief archaeologist. “For that era, this tells us that the organization was based on a political-ideological structure and there are no objects that leave traces of violence.”
It appears that Penico was a strategic center between the coast, the Andean Cordillera and the Amazon. Archaeologists have found skeletons of monkeys and macaws that were brought to the mountains from the jungle, as well as ceramics depicting them. The colorful and charismatic animals may well have been used in ceremonies by shamans or leaders to signify status.
Unfired clay artifacts depict powerful men and women with their faces painted red and their hair styled, indicating gender equality. Seashells from the tropical coast of Ecuador show a “constant connection” with people from the north, as well as the south, east and west.
The food remains include fish bones from the Pacific Ocean, cotton, fruits and vegetables such as sweet potatoes, avocados, corn, pumpkin and chili peppers. Trade appears to flourish in open markets, much like in modern Peru, Ordoñez said.
Sculptural reliefs of pututu, a conch shell pipe still used in Andean religious ceremonies, adorn the walls of the central plaza. According to Ordóñez, they were symbols of power and continue to symbolize Andean identity and resistance.
The discovery of Shady Karal and its 32 monumental buildings rewrote the history books. Her results surprised her fellow archaeologists by showing that the Americas also contained a society that was contemporary with the first great civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China.
There is now growing evidence that, faced with the climate crisis, civilization did not disappear, but adapted and moved. Predating the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs by millennia, these civilizations had complex trading systems, gender equality, and apparently coexisted in peace.
Shady believes Peruvians can learn a lot from their ancestors about how to “live in harmony with nature.”
Tatiana Abad, Vichama's chief archaeologist, says the legacy of the Spanish conquest continues to influence Peruvians. “[The Spanish] believed that it was not a civilization, that it was an uncivilized society, but the latest research shows that neither writing nor the wheel were necessary to create a complex society.”
Vichama and her memorable images are proof of this. Another temple frieze depicts snakes, also associated with water, entwining the faces of the dead. Below them is a smiling, almost comical creature that looks like a cross between an octopus and a space invader from a video game.
Shady believes that the anthropomorphic image represents a joyful seed, promising future harvests, an end to hunger, and the triumph of life after the climate crisis.
