The Viru Valley is located in La Libertad Region on the north west coast of Peru.
The Viru Valley is located in La Libertad Region on the north west coast of Peru.
In 1946 the first attempt to study settlement patterns in the Americas took place in the Viru Valley, led by Gordon Willey. Rather than examine individual settlement sites, Willey wanted to look at the valley as a whole and the way that each village interacted with the others. The study showed that villages were located in places which reflected their relationship with the wider landscape and their neighbours. The project emphasised the importance for archaeologists of viewing sites holistically and to take into account the economic, environmental, social and political factors acting on past societies.
Willey's groundbreaking study stimulated the work of a number of subsequent archaeologists in the valley. From 1992 to 1998 Dr. Thomas A. Zoubek embarked on a study of the earliest mid and upper valley sites in Viru concentrating specifically at the sites of Huaca El Gallo/La Gallina of Virú culture, in the El Nino Quebrada. These excavations and later ones in the Susanga region completely redefined our knowledge of the earliest agricultural societies in the valley and resulted in the discovery of the earliest ceramics found in coastal Peru that have been dated to c.2400 BCE.
The archaeology of the Americas is the study of the archaeology of the Western Hemisphere, including North America (Mesoamerica), Central America, South America and the Caribbean. This includes the study of pre-historic/Pre-Columbian and historic indigenous American peoples, as well as historical archaeology of more recent eras, including the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and European colonization.
The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru with its capital near present-day Moche, Trujillo, Peru from about 100 to 700 AD during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state. Rather, they were likely a group of autonomous polities that shared a common culture, as seen in the rich iconography and monumental architecture that survives today.
La Libertad is a region in northwestern Peru. Formerly it was known as the Department of La Libertad. It is bordered by the Lambayeque, Cajamarca and Amazonas regions on the north, the San Martín Region on the east, the Ancash and Huánuco regions on the south and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Its capital is Trujillo, which is the nation's third biggest city. The region's main port is Salaverry, one of Peru's largest ports. The name of the region is Spanish for "freedom" or "liberty"; it was named in honor of the Intendencia of Trujillo's proclaiming independence from Spain in 1820 and fighting for that. It is the ninth smallest department in Peru, but it is also its second-most populous department after Piura and its second-most densely populated department after Lambayeque.
The Lenca, also known as Lepa Wiran, meaning “Jaguar People” or “People of The Jaguar” are an Indigenous people from present day southwest Honduras and eastern El Salvador in Central America. They speak various dialects of the Lenca language such as Chilanga, Putun (Potón), and Kotik. Although the Lenca speak different dialects, they’ve always understood and coexisted with each other. In Honduras, the Lenca are the largest tribal group, with an estimated population of more than 450,000.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1953.
Gordon Randolph Willey was an American archaeologist who was described by colleagues as the "dean" of New World archaeology. Willey performed fieldwork at excavations in South America, Central America and the Southeastern United States; and pioneered the development and methodology for settlement patterns theories. He worked as an anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution and as a professor at Harvard University.
The Virú culture was a pre-Columbian, pre-Inca culture that flourished in the Virú Valley on the northwest coast of Peru. It marks the start of the Early Intermediate Period of Peru, dating roughly around 200 BCE. This North Coast culture was based in the Virú Valley and extended into the Moche and Santa Valleys as well. The Virú Valley is on a coastal landscape which consists of a narrow land strip boarded by the Andes Mountains to its east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The capital of the Virú valley during this time period was an urban area called the Gallinazo Group site.
Located in the Chicama Valley, the El Brujo Archaeological Complex, just north of Trujillo, La Libertad Province, Peru, is an ancient archaeological site that was occupied from preceramic times. Considering the broad cultural sequencing, the Chicama Valley can be considered as an archaeological microcosm. The research benefits from the favourable environmental and topological conditions for material conservation.
Caral-Supe was a complex pre-Columbian-era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Caral region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BC, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area. It is from 3100 BC onward that large-scale human settlement and communal construction become clearly apparent, which lasted until a period of decline around 1800 BC. Since the early twenty-first century, it has been established as the oldest-known civilization in the Americas, and as one of the six sites where civilisation separately originated in the ancient world.
Aspero is a well-studied Late Preceramic site archaeological complex located near the mouth of the Supe River, south of Supe Puerto, on the central coast of Peru. It forms part of the ancient Caral-Supe civilization and was occupied during the Late Archaic period, from before 3000 BCE to around 1800 BCE. It is connected culturally to the ancient city of Caral, located 25 km up-valley, for which it presumably served as a major fishery. The site covers an area of approximately 14 hectares and features numerous temples or huacas, of which the most prominent are the Huaca Alta, the Huaca de los ídolos and the Huaca de los Sacrificios. Remains of human sacrifice have been found in the latter, dated to about 4500 years ago.
Roger Curtis Green was an American-born, New Zealand-based archaeologist, professor emeritus at The University of Auckland, and member of the National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society of New Zealand. He was awarded the Hector and Marsden Medals and was an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his contributions to the study of Pacific culture history.
The Teuchitlán culture was one of several related cultures in West Mexico during the Late Formative to Classic period. Situated in the Tequila Valleys of Jalisco, the Teuchitlán culture shared in the tradition of burying some of their dead in shaft and chamber tombs. Archaeological work from the past few decades have demonstrated that West Mexico was not occupied by one homogeneous culture, historically referred to as the shaft tomb tradition, that stretched from Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima. Instead, West Mexico was composed of multiple cultures with several distinct commonalities.
The Lima culture was an indigenous civilization which existed in modern-day Lima, Peru during the Early Intermediate Period, extending from roughly 100 to 650. This pre-Incan culture, which overlaps with surrounding Paracas, Moche, and Nasca civilizations, was located in the desert coastal strip of Peru in the Chillon, Rimac and Lurin River valleys. It can be difficult to differentiate the Lima culture from surrounding cultures due to both its physical proximity to other, and better documented cultures, in Coastal Peru, and because it is chronologically very close, if not over lapped, by these other cultures as well. These factors all help contribute to the obscurity of the Lima culture, of which much information is still left to be learned.
The Andean civilizations were South American complex societies of many indigenous people. They stretched down the spine of the Andes for 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from southern Colombia, to Ecuador and Peru, including the deserts of coastal Peru, to north Chile and northwest Argentina. Archaeologists believe that Andean civilizations first developed on the narrow coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. The Caral or Norte Chico civilization of coastal Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, dating back to 3500 BCE. Andean civilization is one of the six "pristine" civilizations of the world, created independently and without influence by other civilizations.
Capacha is an archaeological site located about 6 kilometers northeast of the Colima Municipality, in Colima State, Mexico. This site is the heart of the ancient Mesoamerican Capacha Culture.
The Prather Site (12CL4) is a Middle Mississippian culture archaeological site located in the Falls of the Ohio region in Clark County, Indiana. It was the principal ceremonial center of the Prather Complex, the northeasternmost regional variant of the Mississippian cultures. It also bordered on several Upper Mississippian cultures, including the Fort Ancient peoples of Southern Indiana, Southern Ohio and Northeastern Kentucky.
The Andean preceramic refers to the early period of human occupation in the Andean area of South America that preceded the introduction of ceramics. This period is also called pre-ceramic or aceramic.
The Casma–Sechin culture of Peru refers to the large concentration of pre-historic ruins in the valleys of the Casma River and its tributary the Sechin River and along the nearby coast of the Pacific Ocean. The ruins include major archaeological sites such as Sechin Bajo, Sechin Alto, Cerro Sechin, Mojeque, Chankillo, and Taukachi-Konkan, as well as other smaller sites. Most of these inland sites are found in the river valleys about 20 kilometres (12 mi) distant from the ocean. The seaside sites of Huaynuná and Las Haldas are found about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north and south of the mouth of the Casma River on the coast.
Santa Ana (La Florida) is an important archaeological site in the highlands of Ecuador, going back as early as 3,500 BC. It is located in the Palanda Canton, just to the north of its regional capital of es:Palanda, in the Zamora-Chinchipe Province of Ecuador.
Willey, G. R. (1953): Prehistoric settlement patterns in the Virù Valley, Peru. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 155. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
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