"Учёным удалось обнаружить в районе городка Чинча-Альта самый древний комплекс астрономических сооружений, его строительство происходило порядка 2.3 тысяч лет тому назад" (c) National Academy of Sciences Report.
Recent archaeological research on the south coast of Peru discovered a Late Paracas (ca. 400–100 BCE) mound and geoglyph complex in the middle Chincha Valley. This complex consists of linear geoglyphs, circular rock features, ceremonial mounds, and settlements spread over a 40-km2 area. A striking feature of this culturally modified landscape is that the geoglyph lines converge on mounds and habitation sites to form discrete clusters. Likewise, these clusters contain a number of paired line segments and at least two U-shaped structures that marked the setting sun of the June solstice in antiquity. Excavations in three mounds confirm that they were built in Late Paracas times. The Chincha complex therefore predates the better-known Nasca lines to the south by several centuries and provides insight into the development and use of geoglyphs and platform mounds in Paracas society. The data presented here indicate that Paracas peoples engineered a carefully structured, ritualized landscape to demarcate areas and times for key ritual and social activities.
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The Chincha Valley, located 200 km south of Lima, was one of the largest and most productive regions of southern coastal Peru (Fig. 1). Previous research identified a rich prehispanic history in the valley, beginning at least in the early first millennium BCE and continuing through the Inca period in the 16th century CE (1⇓–3). The earliest settled villages were part of the Paracas culture, a widespread political and social entity that began around 800 BCE and continued up to around 100 BCE. Previous field surveys identified at least 30 major Paracas period sites in the valley (1, 3, 4), making Chincha one of the main centers of development for this early Andean civilization (5). As such, it is an ideal area to test models of social evolution in general and to define the strategies that early peoples used to construct complex social organizations within the opportunities and constraints provided by their environments.
Previous research demonstrated a dense Paracas settlement in the lower valley that focused on large platform mound complexes (Fig. 2) (4, 6). Three seasons of systematic, intensive survey and excavations by our team confirm the existence of a rich and complex Paracas occupation in the midvalley area as well, including both mound clusters and associated geoglyph features. In short, our data indicate that (i): the Chincha geoglyphs predate the better-known Nasca drainage ones by at least three centuries; (ii) Paracas period peoples created a complex landscape by constructing linear geoglyphs that converge on key settlements; and (iii) solstice marking was one component underlying the logic of geoglyph and platform mound construction and use in the Chincha Valley during the Paracas period.
Исследовательская статья:
www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7218.full?sid=0dde9...