5,000-year-old temple — built before the Inca — discovered in Peru. Take a look
BY IRENE WRIGHT JULY 01, 2024 1:02 PM
A carving of a human with a bird’s head and a painting were found at the ancient temple. PERU MINISTRY OF CULTURE
Before the Spanish conquest of Peru, the Inca were an expansive culture known for their elaborate constructions throughout the Andes. Machu Picchu perched in the mountains, the bustling empire capital of Cusco, and a network of roads from village to village were engineering feats of their time.
But thousands of years before the height of Inca ingenuity, other cultures are credited with building temples into the mountains. Now, one has just been discovered. At the Los Paredones de la Otra Banda - Las Ánimas Archaeological Complex located outside the city of Chiclayo, archaeologists have excavated the remains of a religious monument from the Formative Period, according to a June 27 news release from the Ministry of Culture.
Estimated to be about 5,000 years old, the temple walls are made from smashed mud, archaeologists said. The site was dated to the Formative Period, some 5,000 years ago. Peru Ministry of Culture
Bada Valley, located in the Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, is home to a mysterious collection of hundreds of cylindrical stone jars and numerous humanoid-looking statues whose origin and purpose cannot be explained. The Bada Valley Megaliths were introduced to the international scientific community in the early 20th century by missionary and ethnographer Albert C. Kruyt, who documented them. He observed that local communities would bring offerings to the statues to ensure a good harvest or to seek rain during droughts, yet the locals themselves didn't know anything about the creators of the megaliths, stating they had always been there long before their ancestors settled the area. Modern estimates suggest there are over 400 megalithic artifacts scattered throughout the Bada, Besoa, and Napu valleys in Central Sulawesi, with the giant jars numbering around 400 and the humanoid statues being only around 30. The jars, known as "Kalamba," and the statues, referred to as "Arca," are found in clusters as well as isolated locations, indicating that they were part of a widespread and organized cultural practice. No clear evidence links these megaliths to any known historical civilizations in the region. It's unknown how old these structures are, but researchers believe they are at least 5,000 years old.`
A 51,000-year-old cave painting located on the island of Sulawesi.
Oldest known picture story is a 51,000-year-old Indonesian cave painting
New dating technique finds painting on island of Sulawesi is 6,000 years older than previous record holder
The world’s oldest known picture story is a cave painting almost 6,000 years older than the previous record holder, found about 10km away on the same island in Indonesia, an international team of archaeologists has said.
The painting, believed to be at least 51,200 years old, was found at Leang Karampuang cave on the east Indonesian island of Sulawesi, researchers from Griffith University, Southern Cross University and the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency wrote in the journal Nature.
Samples were collected in 2017, but weren’t dated until earlier this year.
The previous record holder was a lifesize picture of a wild pig believed to be created at least 45,500 years ago in a cave at Leang Tedongnge.
The recently discovered painting is of three therianthropes – or human-animal hybrids – and a wild pig.
Pigs played an important role in the culture of the cave painters. Photograph: Dominic Julian/Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency/Google Arts & Culture
Adhi Agus Oktaviana, the lead author and a PhD student at Griffith University, said the findings were “very surprising … none of the famous European ice age art is anywhere near as old as this with the exception of some controversial finds in Spain”.
Spanish scientists have previously claimed art at three sites – in Cantabria, Andalusia and Extremadura – was more than 64,000 years old. However, according to Dr Tristen Jones, a rock art expert at the University of Sydney, those findings were “largely rejected by the international science community”.
Jones said it was unclear if the Spanish researchers dated limestone that had formed on top of the art, or if the limestone had formed elsewhere. The findings were also controversial because the researchers argued Neanderthals made the art. It had previously been believed that only modern humans made art.
Jones said the Spanish researchers had not clearly established the crusts that were sampled formed on top of the art. The findings were also controversial because the researchers argued Neanderthals made the art.
The finding contradicts the academic view that early figurative cave art consisted of single figure panels rather than scenes where figures interacted with each other.
The researchers used uranium series dating to date the layers of calcium carbonate that had formed on top of the art. It involved extracting limestone samples that were then vaporised with a laser. The age of the sample was calculated by measuring the ratio of thorium to uranium.
The researchers said this method allowed the layers to be dated more accurately by ensuring younger and older materials were not mixed together.
The researchers also dated art at a nearby cave – Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 – that was previously believed to be the oldest cave art in the world. They found that the artwork, once believed to be at least 44,000 years old, was at least 48,000 years old.
However, the site of the former oldest known cave painting at Leang Tedongnge could not be dated using the newer method, as there was no calcium carbonate material remaining.
Jones said the new method was “a major leap forward in tightening up the resolution and accuracy of dating”. Typically, she said, rock art is extremely difficult to date as the art is predominately made from minerals.
Adam Brumm, a professor from Griffith University who jointly led the study, said that in the hundreds of excavations he had conducted in the region, there were frequent depictions of the warty pig. “They were clearly economically important to these elite people,” he said. “We can see they were also important to them symbolically and perhaps even spiritually”.
However, the researchers said the events taking place in the artwork were “difficult to interpret”, and it was unclear what animals inspired the human-animal hybrids as they were drawn as “essentially stick figures”.
“For whatever reason … early humans … [are] rarely depicted any form that could be reasonably interpreted as a human,” Brumm said. “Animals were often drawn with incredible anatomical fidelity, but [early cave painters] put less effort into doing that.”
He said the researchers were fairly certain one of the human-animal hybrids was a human with the head of a bird, and another had a tail, believed to be that of a civet.
“Storytelling is a hugely important part of human evolution and possibly even helps to explain our success as a species, but finding evidence for it in art, especially in very early cave art, is exceptionally rare.”
An archaeologist explains the food's likely appeal for people in the Americas millennia ago.
Could a spill by the cook fire have been popcorn’s eureka moment?(Image credit: Paul Taylor via Getty Images)
You have to wonder how people originally figured out how to eat some foods that are beloved today. The cassava plant is toxic if not carefully processed through multiple steps. Yogurt is basically old milk that’s been around for a while and contaminated with bacteria. And who discovered that popcorn could be a toasty, tasty treat?
These kinds of food mysteries are pretty hard to solve.Archaeologydepends on solid remains to figure out what happened in the past, especially for people who didn't use any sort of writing. Unfortunately, most stuff people traditionally used made from wood, animal materials or cloth decays pretty quickly, and archaeologists like me never find it.
We have lots of evidence of hard stuff, such as pottery and stone tools, but softer things — such as leftovers from a meal — are much harder to find. Sometimes we get lucky, if softer stuff is found in very dry places that preserve it. Also, if stuff gets burned, it can last a very long time.
Corn's ancestors
Luckily, corn — also called maize — has some hard parts, such as the kernel shell. They're the bits at the bottom of the popcorn bowl that get caught in your teeth. And since you have to heat maize to make it edible, sometimes it got burned, and archaeologists find evidence that way. Most interesting of all, some plants, including maize, contain tiny, rock-like fragments called phytoliths that can last for thousands of years.
Scientists are pretty sure they know how old maize is. We know maize was probably first farmed byNative Americansin what is now Mexico. Early farmers there domesticated maize from a kind of grass called teosinte.
The ancestor of maize was a grass called teosinte.(Image credit: vainillaychile via Getty Images)
Before farming, people would gather wild teosinte and eat the seeds, which contained a lot of starch, a carbohydrate like you'd find in bread or pasta. They would pick teosinte with the largest seeds and eventually started weeding and planting it. Over time, the wild plant developed into something like what we call maize today. You can tell maize from teosinte by its larger kernels.
There’s evidence of maize farming from dry caves in Mexico as early as 9,000 years ago. From there, maize farming spread throughout North and South America.
Popped corn, preserved food
Figuring out when people started making popcorn is harder. There are several types of maize, most of which will pop if heated, but one variety, actually called "popcorn," makes the best popcorn. Scientists have discovered phytoliths from Peru, as well as burned kernels, of this type of "poppable" maize from as early as 6,700 years ago.
Each popcorn kernel is a seed, ready to burst when heated. (Image credit: Rick Madonik via Getty Images)
You can imagine that popping maize kernels was first discovered by accident. Some maize probably fell into a cooking fire, and whoever was nearby figured out that this was a handy new way of preparing the food. Popped maize would last a long time and was easy to make.
Ancient popcorn was probably not much like the snack you might munch at the movie theater today. There was probably no salt and definitely no butter, since there were no cows to milk in the Americas yet. It probably wasn't served hot and was likely pretty chewy compared with the version you're used to today.
It's impossible to know exactly why or how popcorn was invented, but I would guess it was a clever way to preserve the edible starch in corn by getting rid of the little bit of water inside each kernel that would make it more susceptible to spoiling. It's the heated water in the kernel escaping as steam that makes popcorn pop. The popped corn could then last a long time. What you may consider a tasty snack today probably started as a useful way of preserving and storing food.
