Grandeur, rigorous straight lines, rectangular blocks separated by access ways and ample squares found in Peru’s archeological compounds bring to our mind the layout of Mediterranean cities of Greek as well as Roman heritage. However, compared to Mesopotamia, cradle of man’s first juridical and economic organization built on market and individual property principles, Andean civilization shows substantial differences.

The first of such differences concerns agglomeration processes. Large cities like Wari, Cajamarquilla and Chan-Chan had relatively short lives of 400 to 600 years, they were born suddenly and expanded quickly. Not even ceremonial centers like Chavín or Pachacamac were occupied continuously under the same design pattern for more than one thousand years.

Another difference lies in the fact that in Western cities, roofed houses separated from other houses, i.e. the family’s place of residence, were the basic units and the reason for the existence of the whole. Inside them, courtyards, passages and streets are organized around private roofed areas.

In the Andes, instead, communal spaces that served political and economic functions- like squares, courtyards and open areas- were the organizing core. They include sacred spaces such as pyramids, platforms and restricted monument compounds, but exclude homes.

In most Mediterranean cities, public spaces occupy about 30% of the total area and their monumental buildings are at the center of a residential belt that grew slowly and haphazardly, as shown by the maze – like layout of their roads and passages. In the Andes, we find the exact opposite relationship everywhere.

But the differences do not end there. Also challenging modern understanding is the location of several monument compounds that may have been cities. In the Andean highlands, they are often located at the top of almost inaccessible mountain peaks. On the Coast, they hide in gorges or sit at the top of high, barren plateaus, far from agricultural areas.

The peculiar character of Andean city design stems from its origin. In Mesopotamia and most ancient Mediterranean civilizations, urban growth gave birth to the estate as the guide of a new society where kinship had ceased to play the most prominent role in human relationships.

In the Andes, the emerging state fostered the construction of large architectural compounds to serve administrative, religious and production ends.

How sedentary life was organized in the Andes is another source of amazement. Even the large capital cities of Andean kingdoms and empires often had a small permanent population. Cities comprised sanctuaries as well as sacred palaces with innumerable administrative buildings located along roads and irrigation canals.

A profuse calendar of ceremonial activities performed in public spaces organized the numerous economic and political functions that characterized the life of crowded cities in other parts of the world.

Taxes paid in labor and kind always arrived at the scheduled times, and the hierarchical positions, duties and obligations of the ruling elite were confirmed. A loose layout guided an unceasing flow of people who traveled to either pay homage or taxes.

With evident relation to the roads, canals, mountains and other sacred places, cities basically served as a stage for periodical festivities where the ceremonial corn beer called “chicha” was abundantly poured.

Thus, the state could count on an extended reservoir of labor at the right time and place without having to concentrate large population contingents in big cities.

By and large, most pre-Hispanic Andean societies follow this model, although we can clearly identify at least three broad categories of sites exhibiting pre-Inca and pre-Chimú architectural patterns, including rural settlements of about one half to 4 Ha; monument compounds serving administrative and religious functions usually larger than 8 Ha; and dispersed religious structures such as pyramids, and other smaller groups of closed buildings, platforms and terraces.

The peculiarities of Andean civilization can only be understood if we take into account that the Andes imposes daunting challenges and demand creative solutions given its total or almost total physical isolation from other major cultures.

Contrary to other mountain ranges like the Himalayas in Asia, or the mountains of Central and Eastern Africa, the Andean mountain range runs from north to south and parallel to the Pacific Ocean, thus creating a vast range of east-west niches that make Peru one of the world’s most environmentally varied sceneries, climate, and plant populations.

Towering mountain ranges contributed to the relative isolation of Andean intervalleys from the tropical High Jungle and the Pacific Coast that could only be reached by foot in at least one week after crossing the frozen Puna glaciers. Still, coastal valleys running from east to west communicated somehow naturally with Highland intervalleys stretching from north to south or conversely. Remarkable geomorphological and ecologic differences between Peru’s northern and southern Andes led to independent cultural developments linked however by a shared historical destiny.

These two developments poles were divided by a constantly shifting broad border band, stretching from the Fortaleza valley to the Cañete valley on the central coastal strip and reaching the higher Mantaro river basing on the adjoining Highlands.

The North

The wide strip stretching from the Piura to the Huarmey valleys and rising to the upper Marañón river basin in the first center of cultural development en Peru.

The rivers running across this area –some of which like the Jequetepeque and the Santa carry waters all along the year- prompted the building of irrigation systems. Lower mountain heights in this region let humid air masses move freely and permit the growth of a humid tropical forest in some highland regions, much like the tropical typically found on the eastern Andean slops. The domestication of tropical tubers and the diffusion of corn started here.

Almost since the end of the pre-ceramic period (around 2 700 BC) an impressive development took place in this area. Names of local styles like Sechín, Cupisnique, Salinar, Mochica, Lambayeque and Chimú on the Coast and Huacaloma, Chavín, Layzón, Huaraz, Recuay and Cajamarca in the Highlands remind us of later periods in the region’s rich ancient history. Further north, the Chira and Tumbes basins lie at the border with the Northern Andes.

The South

At an altitude of about 3 000 masl in the Highlands, the Apurímac river valley, the Valley of Cusco and the Lake Titacaca basin make up the second pole of development. The narrow coastal strip is connected to the High Plateau by deep gorges distant from each other. The Pisco, Ica, Palpa and Nazca valleys play a pivotal role in the southern Coast of Peru, because the route to the Ayacucho inter-Andean basin starts at their headwaters. Their history reflects the area’s harsh and extreme conditions.

Scarce water, in particular on the western Andean slopes, and low temperatures in the Highlands were offset by means of technological introductions like underground canals on the Coast, terraces provided with forced irrigation in the Highlands, and planting on mounds amidst fields in the High Plateau.

Poor and fragile soils were rendered useful through the domestication of grains and tubers specially adapted to grow at high altitude, the abundance of South American camelids, and a rich life in the cold ocean waters that are home to the world’s largest diversity of fish and shellfish.

Complex social and political organizations emerged almost 2 000 years later than in the North but this development pole was the stage for remarkable breakthroughs like the domestication of camelids, sophisticated fishing methods, and elaborate funerary rites. Paracas, Nazca, Wari and Ica-Chincha evoke the main stages of pre-Inca history in the region’s southern half. The northern area evolves around the Titicaca area and has its own sequence of cultural development from Pukará to Tiawanaku to Chuquibamba and Churrajón.

As in other part of the planet, adapting to environmental changes after the last ice-age led to the emergence of agriculture and the fast spreading of sedentary life. However, Andean civilizations followed a wholly different technological path than the Mediterranean, South East Asian or Central American civilizations. Among the most glaring differences stand the absence of draught animals, and a limited number of domesticable species that could provide large amounts of animal protein.

Only two ancestors of the South American camelids, the guanaco and the vicuña –wild predecessors to the llama and the alpaca, respectively- were available. The guanaco, an almost extinguished species in Peru, was particularly suited to living on the Coast, while the vicuña, source of the finest fleece in the world, lived in remote places at high elevations.

South American ruminants were the source of wool for clothes, meat for food, hide and bones for making instruments and tools, manure to generate heat and energy, and the beasts of burden and transportation for long haul travel. Only after they were domesticated, it was possible for men in the Andes to exploit regions above 4 200 masl where farming is impossible. Andean men required high mobility to gain access to a wide range of ecological niches and complementary economic resources. Although it is a proven fact that domesticated llamas could live on the Coast and ritual hunting of deer and guanaco took place on the forested slopes along the coastline, exploiting sea resources was essential to provide a balanced diet to the people of western Andean slopes and to produce sufficient dry meat surplus for later consumption.

Probably, shellfish harvesting and fishing supplemented by gathering and incipient horticulture, sufficed to lay the foundations of small sedentary communities already towards the fourth millennium BC. Herding societies in the Highlands, who depended basically on camelid herding for their daily subsistence, emerged parallel to and independently from the Coast’s sedentary or semi-sedentary settlements.

Another basic peculiarity of Central Andean cultural evolution is the wide variety of domesticated plant species in at least three different geographical areas: The High Jungle, straddling the eastern and western Andean basins; the High Andean area, and the coastal desert. Some of these species have gained world recognition recently, such as mashua -presumably aphrodisiac-, or maca, an equivalent of world-famous Korean ginseng. Others have been a staple in makind’s diet for several centuries, including hundreds of potato varieties and four of the world’s ten cereals: corn (developed independently from Mexico), cañihua, kiwicha and quenoa.

Hot chili peppers –known as ají- were included in the diet of Andean people since 8 000 BC, and from about 2 700 to 1 500 BC the menu already included tubers and roots like manioc, mashua, potato, sweet potato, olluco, oca and achira; legumes and pulses including tarwi, broad beans and beans, roots like yacón and jíquima; fruits including avocados, chirimoya (custard apples), lúcuma and guava, peanuts and pumpkins, and plants of industrial use like gourds and cotton. An outstanding aspect of Andean agrarian civilization is that the whole of its production relied on human labor.

Only a few rudimentary tools were available. At a later stage, the chakitaclla or wood plough was improve by adding stone or metal points. Maces to break earth clumps were the most commonly used tools until the time of the Spanish conquest.

On the other hand, cropping techniques foretold the environmental viewpoints adopted in the western world only towards the end of the twentieth century. The most common farming system was similar to small-parcel horticulture that allowed the best use of soils, water resources and natural fertilizers. Considering this background, it is not surprising that individual survival hinged on coordinated work among all community members. In Peru’s vast territory, the need to count on large numbers of hands and minds moved by a grand common goal fostered a sound sense of community belonging that is still today a salient feature of Andean culture.