Some South American history from 2000-1000BC

One of the pyramids at Caral

This is a post about South American history from 2000-1000BC. Please remember that I am not an expert on this time period at all and there is much that is still unknown and still being discovered by archaeologists. However, notwithstanding these caveats, 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.

View of the site of the city of Caral

At the opening of this time period, around the century of the 2000’s BC, the city of Caral was flourishing, as part of the Norte Chico civilisation, alongside other cities such as Huaricanga. The nearby civilisation of the Casma/Sechin culture, with its cities of Sechin Bajo and Sechin Alto, was also flourishing at this time. Bandurria may also have been significant along the Peruvian coast. This small section of the coast of present-day Peru saw a number of small cities and their hinterlands. Many of these cities may have only had a few thousand people in them, but they were undeniably cities. The largest of these was the city of Caral, which had a population of perhaps five thousand people and impressive monumental architecture.

Somewhat inland from the coast, another culture, known as the Kotosh Religious Tradition, had arisen and large ceremonial centres were constructed at Kotosh and La Galgada. This culture showed continuity with cultures that were to follow, but their relationship with the Sechin and Caral-Supe cultures is unclear.

While pottery had been independently invented in South America several millennia earlier, probably around 5500BC in the Amazon Basin, it had not yet spread as far as the Peruvian coast, meaning that these cultures are referred to as aceramic (meaning “without pottery”) or Pre-Ceramic.

Temple remains at Kotosh

Further to the south of the cities on the Peruvian coastline, the Chinchorro culture existed in and near the Atacama Desert and were noted for their mummification processes. The bodies of the dead were elaborately treated and partially preserved, allowing many of them to survive to the present day.

Around the century of the 2000’s BC 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.

Around the century of the 1800’s BC, the unlikely urban site of Las Haldas began to expand. This was situated on a completely barren piece of shoreline, possibly far away from even any sources of fresh water. Yet here the peoples of Las Haldas, part of the Casma/Sechin culture had settled over a millennium previously, and now eventually began to build temple mounds and ceremonial architecture. It is also around this time that the Pre-Ceramic phase of the Casma-Sechin culture ends and what is known as the Initial Period begins. This merely means that archaeologists have noted the occurrence of pottery and other ceramics from around this time onwards.

Chinchorro Mummy

Also around this time, the Chinchorro culture appears to die out or change. This means that the mummies, which had been made for so many millennia previously, were made no more. It is probable that increasing contacts with the agriculturalists to the north brought changes to the culture. Perhaps new religious ideas came to the fore and the mummies of the ancestors were of less importance. Mummification was certainly important to later cultures in the Andean region, so it is likely that the Chinchorro traditions, and others like them, were remembered.

Around the century of the 1700’s BC the Norte Chico culture appears to have begun to decline. It is probable that the land that the civilisation was built one was too poor to support population increases. Excess people would have left the region and taken their knowledge to the surrounding areas, which would then have eclipsed the city of Caral and the other Norte Chico sites. But this would suggest that other greater civilisations should have arisen in the outlying areas. In fact this does not seem to happen. While the emigration and overshadowing hypothesis is a good one, I feel that we just do not know for sure what caused this civilisation to decline. By the end of the next century, by around 1600BC, the city of Caral itself was mostly abandoned, only to be discovered by archaeologists in the 1990’s.

Cumbemayo Aqueduct

Around the century of the 1500’s BC in the Peruvian highlands near the present-day city of Cajamarca, the aqueduct of Cumbemayo was dug into the rock. This aqueduct is carved into the rock and is around 9 km in length. A number of petroglyphs are evident in the area but they are not clearly shaped and their meaning is unclear. Perhaps the people who created these had once come from the Norte Chico civilisation and had brought their methods of irrigation to different lands.

Around this time the Cupisnique culture began to flourish around the northern coast of Peru. As the knowledge of ceramics had very definitely reached the Peruvian coast at this time, they left behind striking and beautiful pottery. They had a number of monumental sites, but as with the Kotosh Religious Tradition and perhaps the Norte Chico civilisation, it is likely that Cupisnique culture was perhaps more of a religious tradition than a culture per se. Aside from the pottery, little distinguishes it from the periods that precede it, and very little distinguishes it from the later periods. The Cupisnique culture almost certainly influenced the later Chavin and Moche cultures. They left the remains of several sites, such as the complex of ruins at Caballo Muerte and the highland temple platforms of Kuntur Wasi (also near Cajamarca).

Rock carvings at Cerro Sechin

In the Casma-Sechin culture, the Cerro Sechin reliefs date from around this time. These are perhaps the first monumental sculptures in South America and show what might be the scene of a bloody battle, with dead and dying warriors perhaps being depicted. Sadly, without writing, we may never know what these represent but they are certainly graphically portrayed. Cerro Sechin may have been abandoned not long after this time period. The nearby complex of Sechin Alto may have also been abandoned, or at least gone into decline around this time.

Around this time, further south in what is now Bolivia, the Wankarani culture began. These were farmers of alpacas and llamas high on the Bolivian altiplano, particularly near the now dead lake of Poopó. The land was not rich however, so the population levels remained low and most settlements were village rather than city-sized.

Around the century of the 1400’s BC the Chiripa culture began to emerge around the southern edges of Lake Titicaca. This was a farming culture that used quinoa and other grains to practice subsistence farming. The type site at Chiripa, which gives its name to the culture, consists of a raised platform with clusters of houses and graves surrounding it. The town seems to have been quite small, although the quality of the grave goods seem to show class distinctions between the townspeople. Some researchers believe that the site of Tiwanaku, near Lake Titicaca, was founded around this time, but if this was the case it is likely that this was just another village for around a millennium.

Site of the arid lands of Las Haldas

On the Peruvian coast, the desert site of Las Haldas expanded, with the inhabitants building a number of mounds around a central plaza. It is possible that the decline of the Casma Valley sites, such as Sechin Alto allowed the city of Las Haldas to expand.

Around this time the Machalilla culture may have begun to thrive in the coastal region of Ecuador. The people of this culture stretched their skulls by moulding them in childhood. They left behind pottery remains but no cities. They lived in villages and practised small-scale agriculture, supplemented by fishing and occasional hunter-gathering. They are really best known to archaeologists because of their relatively elaborate ceramic burial goods that were left in the graves of their deceased.

Terracotta statuary of the Chorrera culture,
but probably some centuries later

In the next century, around the 1300’s BC, the Machalilla culture in Ecuador seems to have begun to merge in with the Chorrera culture, which was very similar but spread over a much larger extent of land, covering much of Ecuador and stretching into Colombia. The Chorrera culture would have incorporated not just the Machalilla culture but also the Valdivia culture, which had been predominant in the region now known as Ecuador.

Around the century of the 1200’s BC, the Kotosh religious tradition appears to have either gone into decline or to have changed into a belief system that required different rituals. It would seem to have been influential in moulding the iconography of the religious traditions of the later Chavin culture.

Around the end of the time period, around the century of the 1000’s BC, the site of Sechin Bajo, as part of the Casma-Sechin culture, may have been conquered by outside invaders, leading to a change in the tradition. The Casma-Sechin settlement of Las Haldas appears to have ceased building new monuments from around this time, possibly because of change in political circumstances. But this is mostly unproven however. Both sites continued to be occupied for much of the next millennium.

Plaza and platform at Kuntur Wasi

So, the period ends, with the initial Andean cultures of Norte Chico and Casma Sechin either declining or disappearing. Pottery usage had become widespread, religious traditions had risen and fallen. The Cumbemayo aqueduct had been built and the last of the Chinchorro mummies had been made. As in North American history, it is so difficult to know what exactly what happened and we are left baffled with conflicting evidence and the mute evidence of archaeological digs. But the variety of finds allow us to know that much had once happened here.

Related Blog Posts:
Some South American history from 4000-2000BC
Some South American history from 2000-1000BC
Some South American history from 1000-500BC