5000-Year-Old Sacred City of Caral is the Oldest Civilization in the Americas

The sacred city of Caral is a 5000-year-old archaeological site on a desert terrace in Lima, Peru. Dating back to the Late Archaic Period of the Central Andes, the site is the oldest urban center of civilization in the Americas. Additionally, the Caral culture is 1500 years earlier than the Olmec civilization, the first complex Mesoamerican society. The site has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009.

Developed between 3000 and 1800 BC in the Supe Valley, the sacred city of Caral is the oldest urban center in the Americas.

Due to its late abandonment as well as late discovery, the site has reached today in an exceptionally well-preserved condition. The lack of silver and gold finds also helped prevent the ancient city from getting looted. It also seems that Caral set a model for the urban design used by the Andean civilizations. The sacred city features elaborate monumental architecture with its earthen platform mounts, sunken circular courts, and six large pyramidal structures.

Among the finds at Caral, there is a knotted textile called a quipu which was used by the Andean civilizations to record information. Other finds in general show no evidence of warfare or body mutilation, indicating that there lived a peaceful society. In fact, they were rather artistic people who crafted flutes out of bird bones and cornetts out of deer and llama bones.