The Amotape complex is an
archaeological culture
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
on the northern coast of
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
dated to between c. 9,000 and 7,100
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
. It constitutes some of the oldest evidence for human occupation of the Peruvian coast. The Amotape complex was identified by the American anthropologist James Richardson III, who located a dozen small camps in the Peruvian coastal desert at the foot of the Amotape hills, near the modern city of
Talara
Talara is a city in the Talara Province of the Piura Region, in northwestern Peru. It is a port city on the Pacific Ocean with a population of 91,444 as of 2017. Its climate is hot and dry. Due to its oil reserves, and ability to produce aviatio ...
. The people of the Amotope complex were
hunter–gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
s who manufactured
unifacial
In archaeology, a uniface is a specific type of stone tool that has been flaked on one surface only. There are two general classes of uniface tools: modified flakes—and formalized tools, which display deliberate, systematic modification of ...
stone tools in
chalcedony
Chalcedony ( , or ) is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, composed of very fine intergrowths of quartz and moganite. These are both silica minerals, but they differ in that quartz has a trigonal crystal structure, while moganite is monoclinic. ...
and
quartzite
Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...
to exploit a variety of local plants and animals. They also collected shellfish in the mangrove swamps which covered the coastline at that time.
[Michael Moseley, ''The Incas and their ancestors'', p. 93.]
The contemporary developments at
Huaca Prieta
Huaca Prieta is the site of a prehistoric settlement beside the Pacific Ocean in the Chicama Valley, just north of Trujillo, La Libertad Province, Peru. It is a part of the El Brujo Archaeological Complex, which also includes Moche (culture) si ...
and Siches area (north Peru, close to Ecuador) also share similar features.
See also
*
Lauricocha culture
Lauricocha culture is a sequence of preceramic cultural periods in Peru's history, spanning about 5,000 years from c. 8000 to 2500 BC.
The total prehistoric sequence in Peru spans 15,000 years, starting at about 13,000 BC when the first gathere ...
*
Paiján culture
The Paiján culture was an archaeological culture that emerged on the northern coast of Peru between 13,000 and 10,000 cal BP (11,000-8,000 BCE). It was first described by Peruvian archaeologist Rafael Larco Hoyle in the 1940s from the Pampa de lo ...
Notes
References
* Dillehay, Tom. ''The Settlement of the Americas: a new prehistory''. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
* Dillehay, Tom, Duccio Bonavia and Peter Kaulicke. "The first settlers". In Helaine Silverman (ed.), ''Andean archaeology''. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004, pp. 16–34.
* Lavallée, Danièle. ''The first South Americans: the peopling of a continent from the earliest evidence to high culture''. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000.
* Moseley, Michael. ''The Incas and their ancestors: the archaeology of Peru''. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Amotape Complex
History of Peru
Pre-Columbian cultures
Andean preceramic