Some South American history from 4000-2000BC

Tierra del Fuego in Argentina

This is a post about South American history from 4000-2000BC. Please remember that I am not an expert on this time period at all and there is much that is still unknown and being discovered by archaeologists, but the broad outlines of what I will describe here will hopefully be mostly correct. The dates presented here will be very broad estimates and may well be wildly off. This is a time before writing in this part of the world so the main sources will be entirely archaeological. While oral history is important, this particular time period is too far in the past for oral history to be useful here.

For the purposes of this blog, South America will comprise of the continent of South America, excluding the islands of the Caribbean, which have been dealt with briefly in the blog post about the history of North America.

As with North America, prior to the year 4000BC the majority of South America was inhabited. Even the wilds of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego seem to have been reached by humans quite swiftly upon the initial arrival in the Americas.

The exact date for the arrival of humans in the Americas is a mystery, but most agree that there was an arrival around 10,000BC where the most recent glacial maximum had lowered the sea levels to allow a land bridge to emerge in the Bering Strait. This connected North America and Asia and allowed for small groups of foragers to cross. There may have been earlier settlements but it is unclear. The group that arrived around 10,000BC was referred to as the Clovis culture (named after their flint weapons that were first found in the city of Clovis in the state of New Mexico in the United States). Within around a millennia humanity had spread all the way down to the southern tip of South America. The large mammals that had lived in the Americas disappeared, possibly because the humans hunted them, but possibly due to the pressure of climate change, combined with food competition from humans.

Cueva de las Manos in Argentina

Around 7000BC in a cave in southern Argentina, cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers would place their hands against the wall of the cave, known as Cueva de las Manos, and blow a type of paint over the hands, leaving an imprint that would last for millennia. Humans using art to say to future generations that they were there.

The original inhabitants of the Americas were hunter-gatherers, but as the populations expanded and the larger animals disappeared, it would seem that the dwellers in the warmer climates began to rely more on gathering food. Some foodstuffs were cared for and replanted and gradually this turned into gardening and from gardening to agriculture. Many of the main crops of the Americas, such as maize and beans, were domesticated in Mexico, but some, such as cotton and the potato, seem to have been independently domesticated in the area that is now known as Peru.

The guinea pig was domesticated by the inhabitants of the Andes, probably as a source of meat rather than because they are cute. Around this time the alpaca and the llama were also domesticated. These were primarily useful for the meat and for their wool. While it is possible for llamas to carry loads, their capacity is quite limited in comparison to a horse or a camel.

Pottery was first developed in the Americas in the Amazon Basin, possibly around 5500BC. There are pottery items from Guyana that appear shortly after this time. Pottery appears to have slowly spread northwards to Colombia, where it is particularly evident at the San Jacinto site. However, the later traditions of elaborate pottery making had not yet developed. These items were not widely used as of yet and these time periods are often referred to as aceramic, meaning, “Without pottery”, or pre-ceramic. From Colombia pottery would spread both north and south, into Mesoamerica and Ecuador and from Ecuador to Peru.

Chinchorro Mummy

The Chinchorro culture, spanning the northern regions of Chile and the southern regions of Peru, is also of interest. It predates the time period that we are looking at and possibly goes back to 7000BC. This was a fishing culture that managed to survive in the extremely arid region of the Atacama Desert by fishing in the coastal waters. The dryness of the land meant that sometimes the dead members of this culture would be preserved. The natural dessication and high salt content of the soil would preserve the tissue of the deceased in a natural mummification process. This happens in many dry regions of the world and is unusual, but not unprecedented. Taking advantage of this process, the Chinchorro people buried their dead with ritual goods and allowed nature to take its course. The Chinchorro people may have been the first people in the world to attempt to preserve and mummify their dead.

Later, around 5000BC, the Chinchorro people attempted to ensure that their dead would be mummified by removing the soft tissue of a person and then reassembling it, placing the skin (or replacement seal skin) back on top of ashen paste to ensure that the likeness of the dead was preserved. The skin was then painted black. The resulting mummy was now mostly ash rather than human and I wonder if perhaps a different term rather than mummy would be more accurate. The care shown to the dead would perhaps suggest that the Chinchorro worshipped their ancestors, but this is speculative. Plenty of cultures treat their dead elaborately, but do not worship them. By the year 4000BC the Chinchorro were still using the black mummy technique and would continue to do so for around a thousand years.

Around 3700 ceramics were found at Puerto Hormiga in Colombia, showing the adoption of the new technology. Pottery was still not widely used in this region at the time however.

Archaeological site in the Casma Valley

Around the year 3500BC the first signs of urbanisation appear in South America. The site at Huaricanga was inhabited from this period by people of a culture that is sometimes referred to as the Norte Chico culture (meaning “Little North” in Peru; confusingly there is also a separate Norte Chico region in Chile). The site at Huaricanga was situated in a dry region, but archaeology reveals that they were using crops to supplement their diet of fish. The combination of nascent agriculture combined with sea fishing appears to have sustained the people of the Norte Chico culture. The early site at Huaricanga was small, but may not have been the only site occupied around this time.

Around a hundred kilometres further north the Casma River and its tributary, the Sechin River, flows from the mountains towards the sea. Along the banks of these rivers another culture, possibly related to the Norte Chico culture, was developing. The close proximity of these two cultures makes it likely that there was some form of interaction between them and it would very strange if they had not known of each other. It is an open question as to which culture was the earliest, but the Casma-Sechin culture also seems to have begun to urbanise around this time. The archaeological site of Sechin Bajo has what are possibly the earliest monumental carvings in South America. This site was occupied for millennia afterwards however, so the carvings that visitors will see nearly all date from later.

A later temple from Bandurria

Another site, around a hundred kilometres to the south of Huaricanga, was the settlement of Bandurria. This was very close to the coastline and may possibly date to as early as 4000BC but the evidence is unclear and the site has been damaged. However, it is clear that a number of cultures were beginning to emerge along the northern Pacific coast in South America. Once urbanisation begins to occur it is quickly copied and so we see areas in the Middle East all beginning to move towards urbanisation at around the same time. A similar process must have occurred along this coast.

Around 3400 the Valdivia Culture emerged in what is now Ecuador. Like the Chinchorro, Casma-Sechin and Norte Chico cultures this was based along the coastline and the inhabitants were primarily reliant on fish from the sea. Because all of these cultures would have had access to some form of coastal boats they may have been in contact with one another, but this is not clear and there are no trade goods that could definitively point this out. The people of the Valdivia Culture lived in circular villages, growing crops to supplement their diet of fish and using nearly all the same crops as were later important in the region, such as maize, beans and squash. This meant that the Three Sisters of Mesoamerican agriculture had already reached the Pacific Coast of South America.

A pyramid from the city of Caral

Around 3100BC the Norte Chico culture began to expand, as did the other cultures in the region, such as the Casma-Sechin culture. Their urban sites grew larger and could now begin to be called cities, although the difference between a small city and a large town is really academic. The rivers began to be more important than the coastlands, although fishing was still important.

Around 3000BC the Preceramic Period in the Casma-Sechin culture begins. This saw the continued expansion of settlements and the founding of new ones, such as the coastal city of Huaynuná. Canals were also built to allow for more agriculture from the rivers.

Around this time the Chinchorro people began to use a style other than the Black Mummy technique. This new method of mummification was called the Mud Coat technique and involved coating the dead with a mud coat of mud, sand and a type of mortar that functioned as a type of cement. This method did not remove the organs of the deceased and left them almost as types of statues.

Pottery has been found from the Valdivia Culture dating from 2700BC. This shows that the use of pottery was spreading gradually through South America, primarily along the coastlines. Around this time small settlements also begin to grow in what is now Colombia.

Around 2500BC the people of the Chinchorro culture began to also use the Red Mummy technique. This was used for around five hundred years and involved removing the internal organs of the dead, drying the remaining body cavity, stuffing the remains with straw and covering it over with a mask, artificial hair and skin and then painting the remains with red ochre. The Red Mummy and Mud Coat techniques seem to have overlapped in time. This was probably just a change of technique rather than a change of culture or religion.

Excavations at Ventarron

Around 2500BC the temple complex at Ventarron was inhabited. This was a site on the northern Pacific Coast of Peru, about ten kilometres from the sea and further north than the Casma Valley. Here, a large temple complex was founded with some indications that the people here were trading with the civilisations both north and south of them.

Also around this time, the city of Caral was inhabited. Caral lay on the Supe River, not far from Huaricanga. While previous settlements resembled large towns, Caral was unquestionably a city. The city covers 150 hectares and contains large public squares and buildings. Some of these are formed like low pyramids and were almost certainly temples. The people of Caral traded extensively with the nearby coastlands and their hinterland, which consisted of at least nineteen smaller settlements, even going so far as to import the vertebrae of blue whales to use as stools. The population was probably not very large however. The city itself may have had a population of just three thousand people. But the valley probably had around twenty thousand and more may have come from even farther afield to attend religious ceremonies.

The magnificent remains of the city of Caral

Religious ceremonies were probably held there regularly. Buildings that were built to preserve fire were dotted around the city, possibly suggesting a fire cult. A geoglyph, a carving scratched onto the ground, similar to the later Nazca Lines, was created near the city, and has some resemblance to carvings at Casma-Sechin. What its meaning was is unclear. Bone flutes have been found that may well have been used in religious ceremonies.

If Caral was a religious centre, as seems likely, then it was also a trading centre. Items have been found there that show that by this point, the peoples of Caral had contact with the Valdivia culture of Ecuador and with the higher Andean regions, with some goods even coming from as far afield as the rainforest on the far side of the Andes.

While the history of Caral is a mystery and will probably always be so, it is possible that even at this early stage the peoples of the region had progressed to proto-writing. Knotted strings have been found that resemble later Incan quipu. Quipu are knotted ropes that can be carried swiftly by runners from place to place and the number and positioning of the knots on the ropes will carry messages. But it is not likely that these strings would tell us much even if they are in fact quipus. Quipus were generally more like tally sticks in certain ways. They were very good for detailing transactions but not for handling more complex content. So the dealings of Caral are likely to remain a mystery forever.

The temples of Kotosh

Around 2300BC the Kotosh site was inhabited. This was a small site, further inland, to the southeast of the Casma River valley and further into the mountains. This is the type site for a culture that is referred to as the Kotosh Religious Tradition. It may have been a ceremonial centre for the people of the mountain valleys. The site itself is not large, but a nearby site called La Galgada may have been larger. It was continuously inhabited, perhaps by a class of priests. The temples in Kotosh had reliefs of crossed hands, but it is not certain what this signified. The Kotosh tradition would form a link to later cultures in Peru.

Around 2250BC a broken gourd showing a staff wielding deity was found. While it can never be exactly certain that this is a symbol of a deity it is almost certainly the same Staff God that was worshipped later in Peru. The Incas knew the Staff God as Viracocha and worshipped him as the creator of the world. If this broken gourd does indeed depict a god and if it is the same god, it shows that there was a cultural continuity from the time of the Norte Chico civilisation until the fall of the Inca Empire.

The mural of Ventarron, destroyed by fire in 2017
Image from the BBC

Around 2000BC the earliest dated murals in the Americas were made on the walls of the temples of Ventarron, along the northern coast of Peru. One of the murals depicted a snake like creature being caught in a net; perhaps a scene from mythology or perhaps simply an illustration from the lives of a fishing people. Sadly, at least one of the murals was destroyed in a fire in 2017.

This brings our survey of South American history for this period to an end. I will write more in a later post. Before closing I would like to take some time to briefly address a misconception. There is a city in Bolivia called Tiwanaku, sometimes called Tiahuanaco that is sometimes stated as being extremely ancient. An explorer from the early 20th Century believed that the site was at least 11,000 years old and, more plausibly, it has been said to date from around 1600BC. More recent estimates suggest that the city should be dated as being occupied from around 300BC onwards. Some older publication may include the earlier dates for the city, so one should be aware of this while reading about South American history. Some conspiracy websites have also taken up this line, speaking of the Tiwanaku civilisation as being the oldest city on earth and probably to do with aliens or something. This diminishes the real achievements of the earlier civilisations such as the ones at Casma Sechin, or Caral.

Later relief of the Staff God from Tiwanaku

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Some South American history from 4000-2000BC

Some South American history from 2000-1000BC

Some South American history from 1000-500BC