Archaeologists in Peru have unearthed the remains of what they believe to be a 4,000-year-old temple and theater, shedding new light on the origins of complex religions in the region.
The team began studying La Otra Banda’s new archaeological site, Cerro Las Animas, in June.
Last year, the local government alerted them to looting that was taking place near the northern Peruvian city of Zaña, according to a press release from the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, on Wednesday.
They excavated a site approximately 10 meters long and 10 meters wide, finding signs of ancient walls made of mud and clay just 1.80 meters deep.
“It was very surprising that these very ancient structures were so close to the modern surface,” Luis Muro Ynoñán, a research scientist at the Field Museum who led the team, said in the statement.
After digging deeper, archaeologists found “a section” of a large temple, Muro Ynoñán said, adding that “one of the most exciting discoveries” was a small theater “with a backstage area and a staircase leading to a stage-like platform.”
“This could have been used to perform ritualistic performances in front of a select audience,” he added.
One of the theater’s staircases was surrounded by mud panels with an elaborate carved design of a mythological bird-like creature, according to the statement.
The figure resembled other images of mythological creatures dating back to the Early Period, around 2000 to 900 BC, giving clues as to when the temple was built.
“The Early Period is important because that’s when we start to see evidence of institutionalized religion in Peru,” Muro Ynoñan said, adding that the discovery “tells us about the early origins of religion” in the region.
“We still know very little about how and under what circumstances complex belief systems emerged in the Andes, and now we have evidence about some of the earliest religious spaces that people were creating in this part of the world,” he said.
The discoveries predate the country’s best-known archaeological site, the ancient citadel of Machu Picchu, believed to have been built by the Inca Empire in the 15th century, by about 3,500 years. They also predate the pre-Inca cultures of Moche and Nazca, the researchers said.
“We don’t know what these people called themselves, or what other people referred to them as. All we know about them comes from what they created: their homes, temples and grave goods,” Muro Ynoñan said.
He added that “people here have created complex religious systems and perceptions about their cosmos,” with religion “an important aspect of the emergence of political authority.”
Muro Ynoñán said he has a “special” and “deep” connection to the discovery, as both his mother’s and father’s families are from the region, “so it was really incredible to come face to face with these representations of an ancient god that was so important to these ancient groups.”
Archaeologists have also found several large murals painted on the walls. Muro Ynoñán has collected samples of paint pigments that he said he plans to analyze in a lab, as well as send samples for carbon dating to confirm the age of the site.
The Andean country is home to a series of archaeological finds from pre-Hispanic times.
In August, Peruvian archaeologists unearthed a 3,000-year-old tomb that they believe honored an elite religious leader.
Just months earlier, a teenage mummy more than 1,000 years old, wrapped in a burial bundle, was discovered on the outskirts of the modern capital, Lima.
Source: CNN Brasil
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