Huaca la Florida

Huaca la Florida is dates to 1810 BCE. It is in the U shape typical of Peru during the Initial Period (approximately 1800- 900 BCE). Huaca la Florida is one of the largest and best preserved temples in the U shape, though the ruins mainly display the shape of the foundation of the structure.

Huaca la Florida is thought to have been used for ceremonial and political activities due to its central location in Lima. Huaca la Florida is near the Rimac River and Pacific Ocean, placing it in the vicinity of the water sources the people living there needed to survive.

The image below is a sketch of what Huaca la Florida would look like if it was in original form.


The diagram below shows the different parts of the typical U shaped temples.

Temple of the Crossed Hands

The Temple of the Crossed Hands dates to around 2000 - 1800 BCE. The site has distinctive architecture which has come to represent the Kotosh traditions and style. The Temple of the Crossed Hands is in a complex containing two additional temples: Nichitos and Blanco. The Temple of the Crossed Hands is the most well known because of five niches containing sculptures of hands. The sculptures are some of the earliest in the pre- Columbian South America. The gesture is believed to be...

•  tied to Peruvian cosmology and the idea of duality. 
• symbolic of sacrifices carried out by priests. 
• symbolic of ritual communion. 
• protection against enemies. 

The area surrounding the Temple of the Crossed Hands is thought to be a place of ritual significance. Because of the lack of housing centers around the complex, Temple of the Crossed Hands is thought to be a location of pilgrimage. 

2000 to 1000 BCE

2000 BCE The Temple of the Crossed Hands, a large square building with mud reliefs of crossed human arms in an interior chamber, is built at Kotosh in the north central Andean highlands. Constructed on top of an earlier building, it too will function as a base for a later structure. Objects of baked clay are associated with the temple; fired clay bowls appear at the site about 200 years later.

1800 BCE El Paraíso, one of a number of significant centers on Peru's central Pacific coast, is inland from the seashore and uses quarried stone for ceremonial buildings and platform mounds, the latter arranged in a U shape. Located near arable land, El Paraíso undertakes agricultural irrigation. These central coast developments are umbrellaed by the term Manchay.

1700 BCE Construction begins on the pyramid at the site of Cerro Sechin in the north-central valley of Casma. Built of conical adobes set in clay mortar, the pyramid is placed at the base of a hill and is quadrangular in plan. Smaller buildings flank each side.

1600 BCE Ceramic vessels at Ecuador's Valdivian centers undergo formal and decorative changes. Machalilla ceramics replace Validivian ones, with a significant addition of the stirrup spout bottle. The bottle, where two spouts join to become one terminal, is much favored in northwest South America for hundreds of years.

1500 BCE The Huaca de los Reyes, a grand building complex of plazas, sunken courts, colonnades, towers, and adobe sculptures, is built of stone and clay mortar at the site of Caballo Muerto in Peru's Moche Valley. It is but one of the impressive building complexes of the period on the north and central Pacific coast of Peru.

1500 BCE Gold is hammered into thin foil and placed in the hands and mouth of a youth upon burial at the central highland site of Waywaka in Peru. The gold foil is the first evidence for the working of metals in South America.

1450 BCE Garagay in the Rimac Valley friezes of finely modeled clay decorate a temple wall. Painted yellow, blue, red and white, the friezes depict fanged supernaturals combining elements of spiders with anthropomorphic features.

1400 BCE The site of Cotocollao north of Quito, where ceramic vessels show similarities to those of Machalilla and later Chorrera ones, maintains trading contacts with the coast.

1350 BCE In Peru's Lurín Valley, an anthropomorphic figure over two feet high, and made of a bottle gourd painted with polychrome slip is buried in a temple mound at the site of Mina Perdida. Perhaps the representation of a mythic ancestor, the image has a prominent upper lip from which six large canines protrude.

1300 BCE At Cerro Sechin a stone wall is built around the stepped pyramid and its outer buildings. The slabs are embellished with shallowly engraved images of warriors and rulers as well as images of dismembered human figures.

1200 BCE Rich burials placed in the Cupisnique quebrada between the northern Peruvian valleys of Chicama and Jequetepeque include numerous ceramic stirrup spout vessels of distinctive, sculptural style. Cupisnique has given its name to the cultural developments of this period on the wider north coast.

1200 BCE Chorrera ceramics of southwest Ecuador develop out of earlier Valdivia and Machalilla traditions. The techniques are further refined with well-finished surfaces and an include many forms.

1200 BCE Machalilla ceramic vessels are traded long distances from the coast. They have been found at Narrío sites in the highlands and at Tayo Cave on eastern slopes of the Andes.

1100 BCE  A large flat-topped mound known today as the Old Temple at the site of Chavín de Huántar is built. At a height of 9800 feet in the Andes' Callejón de Conchucos, its U-shaped structure is similar to that of earlier coastal buildings. Its core is made of rubble and covered with polished slabs of granite, sandstone, and limestone.

1100 BCE The architectural complex at Cardal in Peru's Lurin Valley has several rectangular plazas, ten sunken circular courts, and a central pyramid with a stairway more than eighteen feet wide. Its rubble core is surfaced with white clay. A relief band of giant interlocking teeth and upper fangs decorates the walls of the entryway to the central atrium.

Works of Art: 


The Temple of the Crossed Hands.


Adobe reliefs in the Temple of the Crossed Hands.


Reconstruction drawing of the U- Shaped Huaca la Florida, Rimac Valley, 2000 BCE. 


Head at Huaca del los Reyes.


Cerro Sechin's walled temple.



Cerro Sechin Reliefs


Spouted Bottle
Ecuador, Chorrera
Ceramic


Stirrup- Spout Bottle 
Peru 
Ceramic
x

4000 BCE to 800 BCE

Early Ceramic Culture 4000 BCE to 1800 BCE
Valdivia Culture 3300 BCE to 1500 BCE
Pre-Ceramic Culture 3000 BCE to 1800 BCE
Kotosh Culture 2200 BCE to 900 BCE
Initial Period 1800 BCE to 800 BCE

Important Events:

3300 BCE Villages begin to coalesce along the coast of the Santa Elena Peninsula in southwestern Ecuador. The centers share cultural features that are known as Valdivian.  Small stone figures and ceramic vessels are used by the people.

2800 BCE Early settlements at Cerro Narrío in the Ecuadorian highlands have contacts with the Pacific coast to acquire spondylus shell and with the tropical Andes for coca leaves.

2700- 2500 BCE  Monuments on the central coast are arranged in a U-shape, including a large temple mound in the center and long linear mounds on either side of the temple mound. The opening to the U-shaped plaza faces the headwaters of the valley. Northern coast constructions however include large rectangular terraced mounds, sunken plazas and sunken circular court.

2400 BCE On Peru's Pacific coast, gourds are still used instead of ceramics. In the North coastal regions, cotton textiles are made with images of profile-headed raptors, double-headed birds, snakes, and crabs with claws transforming into snakes.

2200 BCE Kotosh, located in the north central region of the Peruvian Andes is built between tropical lowlands and the Pacific coast, giving the people access to an abundance of resources.

The earliest ceramics appear in coastal sites that were established during the Pre-Ceramic and continued to be used through the Initial Period, such as El Paraiso. Later Initial Period constructions are located inland roughly 10 miles from the coast. Agricultural improvements such as irrigation canals allowed coastal peoples to depend less on fish and slowly move farther from the coast into valleys that could now be farmed more effectively.  Construction techniques also changed dramatically during the Initial Period. Monuments were no longer constructed by small stones carried in shicra or fiber bags. During this period, adobe mud brick construction commonly decorated with plaster and colorful clay friezes starts to appear.

2100 BCE The Peruvian highland site of La Galgada has buildings of stone, plastered white. Important burials with well-preserved contents have been found in its chambers.

Works of Art:

Double-Headed Figure, end of 3rd millennium BCE 

Ecuador; Valdivia 

Ceramic
3 1/2 inches 

Female Figure, end of 3rd millennium BCE

Ecuador; Valdivia

Ceramic 

4 5/8 inches 

Late Initial Period 

Ceramic 

Frieze at Garagay 

Anthropomorphic imagery 

"South America, 8000–2000 B.C.". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/?period=02®ion=sa (October 2000)
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/september-2011/article/ancient-peru-the-origins-of-culture

Andes from 10,000 BCE

During this time South America was composed of present day Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
 http://www.skimountaineer.com/ROF/SoAm/NorAndes/NorAndesMap.gif



This map is of the Northern Andes, home to Archaic cultures from around 10000 BCE to 4000 BCE.
Groups of people settled mainly near coastal areas because of the abundance of food; as agriculture became more developed communities spread out in search for arable land.

http://www.skimountaineer.com/ROF/SoAm/SoAndes/SoAndesMap.gif



This is a map of the Central and Southern Andes, home to Archaic cultures between 8000 BCE and 3000 BCE.

Important Events:

• 8000 BCE The presence of plants allowed people to create baskets out of the plant fibers.  The plants are found mainly in the central highlands of Peru in Callejon de Huaylas.  The baskets were made by twisting, looping, and knotting the plants. 
• 5000 BCE A Chilean group- the Chincorro- practice ritual burial and mummification of the dead. 
• 4000 BCE The early Ceramic Period begins with pottery from the lowlands of Colombia located at the Magdalena River Basin. 
• 3500 BCE Llamas and Alpacas are domesticated.

Map of Present Day South America

http://static2.123teachme.com/cms_images/wordsm/map_south_america.gif