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Early History and
“Cultism”
The first Peruvians were descendants of
the nomadic tribes which had crossed into the Americas during the
last Ice Age (40,000 - 15,000 BC), when a combination of ice
packs and low sea levels exposed a neck of solid "land" to span what is
now the Bering Strait, dividing the Asian Continent from Alaska.
Following herds of game animals from Siberia into what must have been a
relative paradise of fertile coast, wild forest, mountain and savannah,
successive generations continued south through Mexico and Central
America. Some made their way down along the Andes, into the Amazon, and
out onto the more fertile areas of the Peruvian and Ecuadorian coast,
while others found their niches en route. - In other words, all the
indigenous peoples of the Americas are of Asian ethnic extraction.
There is archaeological evidence of human occupation in Peru
dating back to around 15,000 - 20,000 BC, concentrated in the
Ayacucho Valley, where these early Peruvians lived in caves or out
in the open. Around 12,000 BC, slightly to the north in the Chillon
Valley (just above modern Lima), comes the first evidence of significant
craft skills -- stone blades and knives for hunting.
An awareness of the potential uses of
plants began to emerge around 5000 BC with the cultivation of seeds
and tubers (the potato being one of the most important
"discoveries" later taken to Europe); to be followed over the next two
millennia by the introduction, presumably from the Amazon, of gourds,
Lima beans, then squashes, peanuts, and eventually cotton. Towards the
end of this period a climatic shift turned the coast into a much
more arid belt and forced those living there to try their hand at
agriculture in the fertile river beds, a process to some extent
paralleled in the mountains. With a stable agricultural base,
permanent settlements sprang up all along the coast, notably at
Chicama, Asia and Paracas, and in the sierra at Kotosh.
The population began to mushroom, and with it came a new consciousness,
perhaps influenced by cultural developments within the Amazon Basin to
the east: “cultism” (i.e. the burial of the dead in mummy form,
the capturing of trophy heads, and the building of grand religious
structures) made its first appearance. At the same time there were also
considerable advances in the spheres of weaving, tool-making and
ornamental design.
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