About Pyramids in Caral

First City in the New World?
from http://archaeology.about.com/

Peru's Caral suggests civilization emerged in the Americas 1,000 years earlier than experts believed

Six earth-and-rock mounds rise out of the windswept desert of the Supe Valley near the coast of Peru. Dunelike and immense, they appear to be nature's handiwork, forlorn outposts in an arid region squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the folds of the Andean Cordillera. But looks deceive. These are human-made pyramids, and compelling new evidence indicates they are the remains of a city that flourished nearly 5,000 years ago. If true, it would be the oldest urban center in the Americas and among the most ancient in all the world.

Research developed by Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady Solís of San Marcos University suggests that Caral, as the 150-acre complex of pyramids, plazas and residential buildings is known, was a thriving metropolis as Egypt's great pyramids were being built. The energetic archaeologist believes that Caral may also answer nagging questions about the long-mysterious origins of the Inca. Caral may even hold a key to the origins of civilizations everywhere.

What has amazed archaeologists is not just the age but the complexity and scope of Caral. Pirámide Mayor alone covers an area nearly the size of four football fields and is 60 feet tall. Inside a large sunken amphitheater, which could have held many hundreds of people during civic or religious events, Shady's team found 32 flutes made of pelican and condor bones and 37 cornets of deer and llama bones. "Clearly, music played an important role in their society," says Shady.

Eventually Caral would spawn 17 other pyramid complexes scattered across the 35-square-mile area of the Supe Valley. But based on Caral's size and scope, Shady believes that it is indeed the mother city of the Incan civilization.

Caral Civilization

The Caral civilization is the earliest discovered civilizations of the new world, located as several towns on the coast of Peru. It is also called the Caral-Supe Civilization.

The wikipedia quotes:

Caral was inhabited between roughly 3000 BC and 1600 BC, enclosing an area of 66
hectares. Caral is the oldest known urban center in the Americas, accommodating
more than 3,000 inhabitants. Caral is the center of the Caral Supe Civilization,
spread over several settlements along the Peruvian coast. A quipu was discovered below the
steps to one of the pyramids, dated to an age of roughly 5000 years, fixing the
earliest date of this tradition of written communication 2000 years earlier than
was previously thought.

我想这里比较有趣的应该是两件事quipu和pyramids，pyramids找到不错的一篇文章，不翻译了，贴在下一个帖子里。

关于quipu的资料来自于wikipedia：

所谓quipu，就是传说中的结绳记事，当然是特指古印加帝国结绳记事。

图片参看http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Quipu.png

这种quipu最主要的用途是用来计数，类似于会计之类的人在用，有的也用来记录自己有多少牲畜。采用十进制，很令人赞赏的是他们采用了位置制，也就是把一个数字放在另一个的前边表示单位是后者的十倍，并不是每一个文化的最初的数学都采用这种方便的方法的。记录也很简单，除个位以外，其他每个分支上绑了几个结，就表示那一位上是几，没有结就表示0。个位的绑法特殊以便与标示这是数字的终结。换句话说一根绳子上可以有很多数字。通常在最后还有一个数字是前面数字之和，用来核对（这也是为什么现代人能够解读这些数字的原因之一）。

除此以外，有部分学者认为quipu除了计数以外还有语言的功能。他们很强的一个信念就是：作为高度发达的古文明，他们有着高度发达的语言Quechua，为什么没有任何留下来的文字资料呢。经过研究，有学者认为quipu确实可以表示一定的单词，比如有很多时候绳子的开始是牲畜主人的名字（或代码）。当然具体怎么回事还在研究中。如果真的可以表示语言，那就很有趣了，一个使用和数字同样方法来记录故事的文字，古老的密码。

Inca Empire

Timeline of Peruvian history
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

History of Peru－－Timeline ：
Ancient Peru
Caral
Chavin
Moche
Wari
Inca Empire
Colonial Peru
The Conquerors
Viceroyalty of Peru
Republic of Peru
Independence
Peru-Bolivian Confederacy
War of the Pacific

Ancient Peru:
3000 BC - 1600 BC: Caral
900 BC - 200 BC: Chavín
300 BC - AD 1480 Moche, Chimu
300 - 1100 Tiwanaku
500 - 1200 Huari
1438 - 1572: Inca Empire
Colonial Preu:
1532 - 1572: Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
1542 - 1821: Viceroyalty of Peru
Republic of Peru:
1836 - 1839: Peru-Bolivian Confederacy
1879 - 1884: War of the Pacific

The Inca Empire (Quechua: Tawantin suyu1; The Four United Regions2), was an empire centered in what is now Peru from AD 1438 to AD 1533. Over that period, the Inca used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate in their empire a large portion of western South America, centred on the Andean mountain ranges. The Inca empire proved short-lived: by AD 1533, Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, called a Sapa Inca, was killed on the orders of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule.

The empire was divided into four suyus, whose corners - according to Inca mythology - met at the "Navel of the World" (Qusqu), where their capital Cusco was located, now in modern-day Peru.

The official language of the empire was Quechua, although over seven hundred local languages were spoken. The Inca leadership encouraged the worship of their gods, the foremost of which was Inti, the sun god.

也就是说，印加帝国在南美历史上仅仅存在了95年，可是却创造了灿烂的印加文明：发达的道路系统，被成为“新世界的罗马”；巨石建筑，拼合紧密的石块间几乎没有空隙；建造梯田，并建立起庞大的水利系统。。。。除有形的文化标志物以外，印加人在文化方面也取得了卓越的成就，他们最早推广“普通话”－－克丘亚语。但至今还没有有力证据说明印加人懂得使用文字，他们使用的还是结绳记事。印加人在天文历法方面也没有得到长足的发展。

The Amazon Basin

Amazon

All the events and periods discusses in this article and the following few articles belong to the Pre-Columbian era, until I move over this period.

Here goes the wikipedia quote about Amazon, as usual:

Amazon
Some 5 to 7 million people lived in the Amazon region, divided
between comparatively dense coastal settlements and more nomadic inland
dwellers. The latter lived on a complex combination of swiddlen agriculture,
alteration of the forest ecosystem, and hunting and gathering.[1]

The question is:

1) which part of the continent is called Amazon region specificly?

2)When did this happen?

3)Any pictures of any things from this period?

To be continued...

reminder of the previous post about time:

Humans moved to America 10,000 years BCE. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continent. By the first millennium CE, South America’s vast rainforests, mountains, plains, mountain and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people.

Where does the people come from?

According to wikipedia, the history is divided into four parts:
Pre-Columibian Era
European Colonization
Independence
Recent History

所以，可以问的第一个问题是：最初的人是哪儿来的？
下面是wikipedia的一段说明：

South America is thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering strait, though there are also suggestions of migration across the southern Pacific Ocean. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continent. By the first millennium CE, South America’s vast rainforests, mountains, plains, mountain and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people.

CE也就是AD，是公元的非宗教性的名称：Common Era。AD是拉丁文， anno Domini (AD) ，有宗教色彩，表示“主诞生的那一年”。（当然这段与历史无关：））

也就是说普遍的观点是：南美洲的人都是外来人口。有人认为他们是通过一个叫做Bering Land Bridge的land bridge进入南美洲；有人认为他们是通过southern Pacific Ocean游过来的？坐船过来的？

这个很有意思。What makes them think so? How do they verify this?（这可以是个问题，不过作为历史了解性的Blog太过细节了）

关于Bering Land Bridge：

The Bering land bridge, also known as Beringia, was a land bridge roughly 1600 km (1000 miles) north to south at its greatest extent, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the ice ages.

关于land bridge：

Land bridge is essentially a historical term; it refers to dry land exposed during periods of low sea level (see regression), connecting what are now separate continents or islands.

关于Ice ages:

...the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago.

关于人类诞生的时间：

The view most widely accepted by the anthropological community is that the human species originated in the African savanna between 100 and 200 thousand years BCE, colonised the rest of the Old World and Oceania by 40,000 years BCE, and finally colonised the Americas by 10,000 years BCE.

所以人类诞生以后就在地球上走来走去，最后走过了亚洲，然后通过Beringia走到美洲。Sound reasonable.

准确地说是走到阿拉斯加，然后通过北美洲走到南美洲。是不是这样呢？我们假设板块运动学说是正确的，10000BCE的时候大陆是什么样子的？如果那时候和现在差不多，估计应该是从北美洲跑到南美洲了。

South Americans

Population: The total population in South America is 3.25 million, which is about 5.6% of the world population, and it is denser in the northwest region or near the east coast. The vast Amazon plain is one of the most sparse populated areas, with less than one human being within every square kilometer as average. Another characteristic of the distribution is high concerntation within a few major cities.

Ethnology: The South American ethnology is quite complicated. White people is the majority, then Indian and Indian-Europe hybrid, with black people as the smallest nation.

Language: Indian is used by Indian people. The official language for Brazil is Spanish; French Guyana uses French while Guyana uses English; Suriname uses Dutch while all other countries uses Spanish.

Religion: Most of the residents are Papist while some are Christian.


南美地区原为印第安人的居住地。印第安人创造了灿烂的古代文明，在南美洲大地上建立过不少王国。15世纪后，它们先后沦为西班牙等国的殖民地。殖民统治时期，原有的土著居民遭到侵入，人口逐渐减少，而欧洲白人移入数量又逐年增多。部分印第安人与白人混血。另外，为了适应种植业的需要，弥补印第安人劳动力的不足，从非洲贩入不少黑奴。久而久之，南美洲形成了以白人和印欧混血种人为主的大陆。

Geography of South America

from wikipedia

South America is a continent, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. South America is situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

Commonly referred to as part of the Americas, like North America, South America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a previously undiscovered New World.

South America has an area of 17,820,000 km² (6,880,000 sq mi), or almost 3.5% of the Earth's surface. As of 2005, its population was estimated at more than 371,200,000. South America ranks fourth in area (after Asia, Africa, and North America) and fifth in population (after Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America).

The classification of its geographic location is subject to dispute, as in some non-English speaking regions of the world, the Americas are a continent and North, Central and South America are its subcontinents. In English-speaking and certain other regions of the world, North and South America are considered to be continents and their union is referred to as the supercontinent of the Americas. The classification given to South America, as a subcontinent in a continent or a continent in a supercontinent, depends entirely on regional preferences.

It became attached to North America only recently (geologically speaking) with the formation of the Isthmus of Panama some 3 million years ago, which resulted in the Great American Interchange. The Andes, likewise a comparatively young and seismically restless mountain range, run down the western edge of the continent; the land to the east of the Andes is largely tropical rain forest, the vast Amazon River basin. The continent also contains drier regions such as Patagonia and the extremely arid Atacama desert.

The region of South America also includes various islands, most of which belong to countries on the continent. The Caribbean territories are grouped with North America. The South American nations that border the Caribbean Sea – including Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana – are also known as Caribbean South America.

Major natural resources are copper, iron ore, tin and oil. The many resources in South America have become useful around the world, but they have failed to diversify their economies. This has lead to major highs and lows in their economy causing instability.

South America is home to many interesting species of animals including parrots, tarantulas, snakes, and mammals.

The largest country in South America by far, in both area and population, is Brazil, followed by Argentina. Regions in South America include the Andean States, the Guianas, the Southern Cone, and Eastern South America.

总体来说，南美洲就是从巴拿马运河往南的一片大陆，包括周围的一片岛屿。但是我没弄清楚巴拿马运河是哪个国家的。

Bolivia

A glance of South America