Archaeologists in Peru have discovered a multicoloured three-dimensional wall that could date back 4,000 years, in an unprecedented find that has shifted archaeological understanding about the first civilisations in the Americas.
The centrepiece of the three-by-six metre wall carving is a stylistic depiction of a large bird of prey with outstretched wings, its head adorned with three-dimensional diamond motifs that visually align the south and north faces of the mural. It is covered with high-relief friezes and features designs painted in blue, yellow, red and black.
The sophisticated and stylistic imagery sheds new light on the beliefs and social structures of early civilisations in the formative period (2000-1000BC) in Peru. Archaeologists consider pre-Hispanic Peru to be one of the birthplaces of civilisation in the Americas, with an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including famous tourist attractions such as Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines.
Ana Cecilia Mauricio, the lead archaeologist at the Huaca Yolanda excavation site in the Tanguche valley, in Peru’s La Libertad region, said the discovery spoke of “the emergence of social hierarchy in Peru as societies get more complex and become civilisations”.
The double-sided mural is part of the interior decoration of a courtyard within a temple. The 3D designs – which also include stylised fish, fishing nets, mythological beings and stars – give a fascinating insight into the cosmovision of these formative coastal civilisations.
“These were people who lived from agriculture and from the sea but they already show the first signs of social hierarchy,” said Mauricio, an associate professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, speaking by phone from the dig where the discovery was made.
The most influential and powerful people would have been shamans, male and female, or priests or priestesses, Mauricio explained. “They possessed important knowledge about medicinal plants and also about astronomy; they could predict the weather conditions through observation of the stars and the sun,” she said.
“They acquired knowledge and began to perfect it. They were, in a sense, scientists as well as spiritual and religious leaders,” she added.
One of the carvings depicts three humanoid figures which appear to show a transformation from a human into a bird, Mauricio explained. She said it could represent the figurative transformation of a shaman into a psychoactive state, known as a “rite of passage”, after consuming a substance like San Pedro cactus, a traditional South American hallucinogen.
Mauricio said the Huaca Yolanda site probably predated Chavín de Huántar, one of the most studied pre-Hispanic ceremonial sites in the Andes. Both belong to the formative period timeframe which marks the beginning of early civilisations. John Rick, the US archaeologist leading investigations at Chavín de Huántar has documented the ceremonial use of hallucinogens inside tunnels in the 2,500-year-old temple complex.
The Huaca Yolanda site faces more prosaic threats from advancing agriculture, urban development and looting, which has already destroyed surrounding ruins, says Mauricio.
She said the site – which she has been exploring since 2012 as part of research into early ecodynamics in the Chao and Santa Valleys – did not yet have full protection from Peru’s culture ministry and regional authorities.
“People in the past had a relationship with their environmental and climatic surroundings that can be valuable to us in the present,” said Mauricio of the early civilisation which managed to live alongside the El Niño weather phenomenon that regularly causes devastation through flooding and landslides in modern Peru. “Can this knowledge help us understand how to deal with climatic phenomena now?”
