Andean Cosmovision
The first civilizations in South America appear in the north of Lima in Peru and this is where the ANDEAN COSMOVISION, belief and conception of the world still very present in the rural Andean world will be developed. The first human presence in South America is around Huaraz (400 km north of Lima) since the migration of the Bering Strait 13,000 years before our era. When settling in the Cave of Guitarrero, these hunter-gatherers become semi-nomadic. In the place, they find a very varied vegetation and many large animals. They will occupy the region until they run out of food resources, then move 100 kilometers to the south and so on ... At the same time we can continue this migration to Tierra del Fuego, the families that stayed around the cave of Guitarrero prospered until it overpopulated the area. It is then that some of them changed their way of life, establishing themselves, 6,000 years BC, on the coast to become fishermen. The fact of finding in the place an inexhaustible resource of foods, will begin to the sedentarización and almost at the same time at the beginning of the Andean agriculture. Then there is the task specialization and a new dominant class: the shamans, who will be the ones who have the knowledge, the wisdom, the ones who will predict the arrival of the rains ... We must not forget that the beginning of agriculture is developing in the desert. The first task of each shaman is to make an agricultural calendar by observing the sky, the constellations and the stars ... They seek to rise from the ground to be closer to the sky by building temples in the form of a truncated pyramid in order to establish reference points on the platform that indicate mainly winter solstices. Therefore, we can say that one of the first functions of any temple is that of an astronomical observatory. Little by little, they will try to beautify their temples by representing the knowledge or beliefs of the moment, either by colors, engravings or sculptures ... Thus, with time, the temples will assume different functions, such as religious, administrative, political, educational, and the last one to emerge will be the funerary function. Around these temples, a complete society will be organized that will form the first civilizations ...
Upon leaving Lima, in the valley of Supe, we have just discovered a new point of civilization: Caral, on a continent where we thought there was none ... A point of ancient civilization (3,100 years BC) before Egypt . A civilization that appears thanks to the domestication of the cotton plant. The cotton allowed the farmers to exchange with the fishermen that allowed them to make nets to catch more fish and this surplus of fish, they gave it to the farmers to improve their protein intake. Peoples who lived in perfect harmony without clashes or wars, which is another characteristic of these early civilizations of South America unlike the old world where men have always clashed territorial conquests ... In Caral, there is around a large space , nine truncated pyramids and two circular squares. Definitely, Caral has an infrastructure too complex to be the first culture, which means that we still lack the shopping centers to discover since the beginning of agriculture. We begin to establish the basis of what will eventually be formed as ANDEAN COSMOVISION. Caral was destroyed in part about 2,200 years BC. for a catastrophic climate phenomenon: El Niño. The site was abandoned and the shamans move in Sechin Cerro.
Sechin, one of the first decorated temples where there are more than 256 granite stelae engraved in bas-relief. A very interesting site to understand the complexity of interpretation that archaeologists have during their discovery ... Definitely, one should never interpret what one sees in the first degree, One can give at least 4 different degrees of interpretation, the problem is that we have not yet been able to decipher all the codes. One thing that can not be doubted is that one of the functions of this temple was an educational function, one of the first medical universities in the world where the main organ of man was the brain. Sechin Cerro has its apogee around 1,500 BC. years of antiguaty. and disappears victim of the same natural destructive phenomenon: El Niño. The shamans move towards Chavin, who reaches the top of agriculture with the domestication of corn. These are experts in irrigation that allow them to extend the surfaces of cultures ...
During Chavin appears ceramics, metallurgy and the ANDEAN COSMOVISION that remains very present to this day. The best representation of this knowledge and the philosophy of the Andean Cosmovision is the Chakana or Cruz Andina. Chavin is known as the great cultural and religious center of the Andes and other peoples voluntarily join this elite that extends its influence over a territory almost as large as the future territory of the Inca Empire. Chavin is definitely a very complex temple that disappears 200 years BC, always following the ravages of the same phenomenon: El Niño. From that moment Chavin shamans lose their influence and each person who voluntarily joined them regains its independence maintaining the assets of CHAVIN. Thus, in the north, we will find, after Chavin, the cultures Vicus, Salinar, Viru, Mochica, Cajamarca and in the south the Paracas, Nazca, Tihuanacu, etc.
From the arrival of the man from Guitarrero to Chavin, we find this great civilization that would have persisted for more than 6,000 years that I will personally call the civilization of the ANDEAN COSMOVISION since they lived and were transmitting their experiences and accumulating their knowledge without rest.
Chavin is the mother culture of the Andean world. A must visit for all history buffs and to understand the later cultures or the current communities (rural tourism) ...
Enjoy living this experience in your own flesh and achieve a greater understanding of the ANDEAN COSMOVISION with our full Tour of Caral - Sechin - Chavin as you cross different landscapes with the best local guides and know a little of the local culture and history.
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