Suddenly Civilized: New finds push back Americas’ first society
By Bruce Bower
The earliest known civilization in the Americas emerged about 5,000 years ago in what’s now Peru, a team of archaeologists finds. Until now, it wasn’t clear that the Peruvian sites examined were older than about 3,800 years or that they had been part of the same society.
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New excavations and radiocarbon dates indicate that more than 20 large settlements, which cover a 700-square-mile area in four river valleys of the Andes, belonged to a culture that lasted from about 5,000 to 3,800 years ago.