Ancient Ceremonial Plaza Unearthed in Peru
Andrew Whalen, Associated Press
Feb. 27, 2008 -- A team of German and Peruvian archaeologists say they have discovered the oldest known monument in Peru: a 5,500-year-old ceremonial plaza near Peru's north-central coast.
Carbon dating of material from the site revealed it was built between 3500 B.C. and 3000 B.C., Peter Fuchs, a German archaeologist who headed the excavation team, said by telephone Monday.
The discovery is further evidence that civilization thrived in Peru at the same time as it did in what is now the Middle East and South Asia, said Ruth Shady, a prominent Peruvian archaeologist who led the team that discovered the ancient city of Caral in 2001. Shady serves as a senior adviser to Peru's National Culture Institute and was not involved in the project.
The find also raises questions about what prompted "civilizations to form throughout the planet at more or less the same time," Shady said.
The circular, sunken plaza, built of stones and adobe, is part of the Sechin Bajo archaeological complex in Andes foothills, 206 miles northwest of Lima, where Fuchs and fellow German archaeologist Renate Patzschke have been working since 1992.
It predates similar monuments and plazas found in Caral, which nonetheless remains the oldest known city in the Americas dating back to 2627 B.C.
The plaza served as a social and ritual space where ancient peoples celebrated their "thoughts about the world, their place within it, and images of their world and themselves," Fuchs said.
In an adjacent structure, built around 1800 B.C., Fuchs' team uncovered a 3,600-year-old adobe frieze--six feet tall--depicting the iconic image of a human sacrificer "standing with open arms, holding a ritual knife in one hand and a human head in the other," Fuchs said.
The mythic image was also found in the celebrated Moche Lords of Sipan tombs, discovered on Peru's northern coast in the late 1980s.
Walter Alva, the Peruvian archaeologist who uncovered the Lords of Sipan tombs, said the plaza found in Fuchs' dig was probably utilized by an advanced civilization with economic stability, a necessary condition to construct such a ceremonial site.
The excavation was the fourth in a series of digs at the Sechin Bajo complex that Fuchs and Patzschke began on behalf of the University of Berlin in 1992. Deutsche Forschung Gemeinschaft, a German state agency created to sponsor scientific investigations, has financed the most recent three digs.
The find "shows the world that in America too, human beings of the New World had the same capacity to create civilization as those in the Old World," Shady said.
Her discovery, Caral, made headlines in 2001 when researchers carbon-dated material from the city back to 2627 B.C., proving that a complex urban center in th........
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Blogger Note: The Ancient Ceremonial Plaza in Peru story only confirms the Book of Mormon claims, peoples and cultures of ancient antiquity thrived upon the American Continent. Such as the Jeredite cultures, spoken of in Book of Ether, in the Book of Mormon. The Jaredites, led by Jared and the Brother of Jared around 3000/2600 B.C.- 200 B.C., after the fall of the Great Tower of Babel, traveled east as recorded by the Book of Mormon. The wise, considerate scholar will note the Book of Mormon acount of 3000/2600 B.C. and the Mesoamerican city Caral dated to 2627 B.C. are dated closely. To close for mere chance.
Book of Genesis KJV records Genesis 11:8-9
8So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
If the Biblical Account stands correct, then the American continent in included, to which God scattered the peoples. In fact what appears to be a single language in 6 world wide locations, 2 locations which have been discovered upon the American Continent give evidence of a single worldwide language.
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The Jaredite story ends in the Book of Mormon. We never hear from the Bible what happened to them. They disappeared. Their story continues and is recorded in Book of Ether, of the Book of Mormon.
According to the Book of Mormon, Jared and the Brother of Jared led their people to the New World long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
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