The North Countries – Part III

Continued from the previous post regarding the north countries of the Nephites, and their relationship to the north lands of Andean Peru. An area referred to by archaeologists of today as the Norte Chico. It might be of interest to know that in this area of Norte Chico, thirty major population centers sprang up over time along this north-central coast of Peru. The Norte Chico civilization of Caral is one of the oldest and most sophisticated in the world, having flourished between the thirtieth century BC. and the eighteenth century BC. The alternative name, Caral-Supe, is derived from Caral in the Supe Valley, a large and well-studied Norte Chico site.
    It emerged just a millennium after Sumer in Mesopotamia, was contemporaneous with the pyramids of Ancient Egypt and predated the earliest culture of Mesoamerican. The most impressive achievement of the civilization was its monumental architecture, including massive ceremonial pyramids built on a base of large platform mounds, and sunken circular plazas, along with a complex irrigation system.

Artist’s rendition of the major pyramid found at Caral-Supe, one of six such pyramids. It had 160 x 150-foot o base and 60-foot of height (six stories), with a circular sunken plaa located in front of the acce3ss staircase which reached the summit where the main enclosure was located, the atrium and the altar, with the whole complex was supported on a platform

These pyramids, which are terraced and rectangular in shape, were built of stone. In Caral, a total of six pyramids have been discovered, the largest of which is the “Pirámide Mayor” (Major Pyramid), which was built around 2620 BC. It had 160 x 150 of base and 18 meters of height. Next to it were other pyramids or elevated platforms that constituted a ceremonial center. First the walls of the platform were built by filling sacks of mesh with wide gaps with ashlars, then the outer surface was covered with colored mortar. It consists of a circular plaza that is located in front of the access staircase, which reached the summit where the main enclosure was located, the atrium and the altar of the sacred fire. The whole complex was supported on a platform.
    In addition, archaeological evidence suggests the use of textile technology and, possibly, the worship of a common god, both of which recur in pre-Columbian Andean cultures. Sophisticated government is assumed to have been required to manage the ancient Norte Chico, and questions remain over its organization, particularly the impact of food resources on politics.
    Its sophistication should suggest to all that no one part of the world can claim to have led the whole world and the whole human race in developing technology, culture, society, political organization or ideas of the divine.
    Much study has been done on the diet of the coastal cities, especially that of Caral, whose lack of ceramics have interested many archaeologists. Much early fieldwork was done in the region of Aspero on the coast before the full scope and inter-connectedness of the civilization was realized.

Aspero along the central Peruvian coast, west of Caral, but on a defensible hilltop just north of the Supe River

In a 1973 paper, Michael E. Moseley confirmed a previously observed lack of ceramics at Aspero, and deduced that housing arrangements on the site were built on artificial platforms, and contended that a maritime subsistence—a seafood diet—had been the basis of the society and its remarkably early flourishing (Michael E. Moseley and Gordon R. Willey, “Aspero, Peru: A Reexamination of the Site and Its Implications," American Antiquity Vol.38, No.4, 1973, pp452–468).
    His theory was later elaborated as a "maritime foundation of Andean civilization,” which, however, was out of keeping with general consensus on the rise of civilization because to anthropologists, intensive agriculture, particularly of at least one cereal, has long been seen as essential in the emergence of a complex society. Moseley's ideas that maritime remains and their caloric contribution were overestimated, would be debated and challenged but have been treated as plausible as late by Charles C. Mann's summary.
    According to Jonathan Haas et al., up and down the Peruvian coast, cotton fishing nets and domesticated plants have been found, showing that the major inland centers of Norte Chico were at the center of a broad regional trade network centered on these resources (Jonathan Haas, Winifred Creamer, and Alvaro Ruiz. 2005, "Power and the Emergence of Complex Polities in the Peruvian Preceramic." Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Vol.14, 2005, pp37–52).
    This trade was essential as Ruth Shady Solis has shown: "Caral exported its own products and those of Aspero to distant communities in exchange for exotic imports: spondylus mollusk (spiny oyster) shells from the coast of Ecuador, rich dyes from the Andean highlands, and hallucinogenic snuff from the Amazon Basin” (Kenneth Miller, "Showdown at the O.K. Caral," Discover, Vol.26, No.9, 2005). Other reports on Shady's work indicate Caral traded with communities in the jungle farther inland and, possibly, with people from the mountains.
    There is no question, however, this civilization flourished in Peru about 5000 years ago, and hence has been considered to be one of the oldest known civilization to have existed in the Americas. Where Caral had always been considered the oldest, recent findings show that Bandurria, to the south, is even older at 4000 BC. The dating shows that these coastal sites were developing around the same time as their inland neighbors, which challenges the older conventional understanding that all early civilizations in Peru and the rest of South America began by the sea as coastal settlements. However, a close inter-dependent relationship between the peoples of the coast and the inland civilization existed. Trade is believed to have been based on fish from the coast being exchanged for cotton (for the production of fishing nets) from the interior.
    An interesting find has been in the 4500-year-old burials uncovered which suggests that Norte Chico people practiced gender equality

The Norte Chico region, where the three rivers and valleys (Fortaleza, Pativilca, and Supe) of the Caral-Supe complex and numerous other B.C. period sites were located

These cities flourished within three valleys, each supported by a river: the Fortaleza, the Pativilca, and the Supe, where large clusters of sites were anciently built. Caral alone covered 62-hectares (150 acres), and accommodated more than 3000 inhabitants on a dry desert terrace overlooking the green valley of the Supe river. The design of both the architectural and spatial components of the city is masterful, and the monumental platform mounds and recessed circular courts are powerful and influential expressions of a consolidated state, and is the best example of influential expressions of a consolidated state—a style that dominated the Peruvian coast for many centuries.
    It is part of a cultural and natural landscape of great beauty, relatively untouched by development since most development has occurred in low valley areas to the south near Lima. In the middle Supe Valley, where the site is located, is an area dedicated to non-industrialized agriculture. However, Caral is not the only very old city.

The city called Bandurria by anthropologists, now considered to be older than Caral-Supe, dating back into the second millennium B.C.

Just a little to the south were additional clusters of sites along the Huaura River, where the ancient site of Bandurria is located 87 miles north of Lima, which dates back to the 2^nd millennium B.C., and referred to as a Late Preceramic or Late Archaic site. It is located near the Pacific coast, in the area called Playa Chica, and dated even before Caral-Supe.
    It was in this area that some of the earliest development in Andean Peru took place, where both Caral-Supe and Bandurria are located. Another area that dates to a comparably early period is that of the Valdivia Culture in southwestern Ecuador, along the peninsula of Santa Elena.
    In the area of the “north countries,” it should be kept in mind that the early Peruvians (Nephites) moved into the east along the coastal area for better agricultural land. After all, both the Andes and high valleys, as well as the western desert coast with its limited soil suitable for farming, became insufficient for sustaining a population developed through the long and steady growth of the Nephite Nation, which had existed in the Land of Promise for some 600 years.

Top: The hilltop fortified city walls of La Congoña; Bottom: The hilltop fortress of Kuélap—both Chachapoyas impregnable mountain top cities in the “north country”

In addition, it should be kept in mind that in most cases, these northern cities were built on top of ridges with not only a view of the surrounding area for quite some distance, but in hard to reach areas for defense against southern invasion. This is characteristic of Nephite construction, building their forts, fortresses and citadels out of stone with high walls around them for protection.
(See the next post, “The North Countries – Part IV,” for more about the Peruvian north countries and its relationship to the events of Mormon’s eventual retreat toward Cumorah)