Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas
The population figure of indigenous peoples of the Americas before the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus has proven difficult to establish. Scholars rely on written records from European settlers. Most scholars writing at the end of the 19th century estimated that the pre-Columbian population was as low as 10 million. Contact with the Europeans led to the European colonization of the Americas, in which millions of immigrants from Europe settled in the Americas; the population of African and Eurasian peoples in the Americas grew while the indigenous population plummeted. Eurasian diseases such as influenza, pneumonic plagues, smallpox devastated the Native Americans, who did not have immunity to them. Conflict and outright warfare with Western European newcomers and other American tribes further reduced populations and disrupted traditional societies; the extent and causes of the decline have long been a subject of academic debate, along with its characterization as a genocide. Given the fragmentary nature of the evidence semi-accurate pre-Columbian population figures are impossible to obtain.
Scholars have varied on the estimated size of the indigenous populations prior to colonization and on the effects of European contact. Estimates are made by extrapolations from small bits of data. In 1976, geographer William Denevan used the existing estimates to derive a "consensus count" of about 54 million people. Nonetheless, more recent estimates still range widely. Using an estimate of 37 million people in Mexico and South America in 1492, the lowest estimates give a death toll due from disease of 80% by the end of the 17th century. Latin America would match its 15th-century population early in the 19th century. In the last three decades of the 16th century, the population of present-day Mexico dropped to about one million people; the Maya population is today estimated at six million, about the same as at the end of the 15th century, according to some estimates. In what is now Brazil, the indigenous population declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated four million to some 300,000.
While it is difficult to determine how many Natives lived in North America before Columbus, estimates range from a low of 2.1 million to 7 million people to a high of 18 million. The aboriginal population of Canada during the late 15th century is estimated to have been between 200,000 and two million, with a figure of 500,000 accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Health. Repeated outbreaks of Old World infectious diseases such as influenza and smallpox, were the main cause of depopulation; this combined with other factors such as dispossession from European/Canadian settlements and numerous violent conflicts resulted in a forty- to eighty-percent aboriginal population decrease after contact. For example, during the late 1630s, smallpox killed over half of the Wyandot, who controlled most of the early North American fur trade in what became Canada, they were reduced to fewer than 10,000 people. Historian David Henige has argued that many population figures are the result of arbitrary formulas selectively applied to numbers from unreliable historical sources.
He believes this is a weakness unrecognized by several contributors to the field, insists there is not sufficient evidence to produce population numbers that have any real meaning. He characterizes the modern trend of high estimates as "pseudo-scientific number-crunching." Henige does not advocate a low population estimate, but argues that the scanty and unreliable nature of the evidence renders broad estimates suspect, saying "high counters" have been flagrant in their misuse of sources. Many population studies acknowledge the inherent difficulties in producing reliable statistics, given the scarcity of hard data; the population debate has had ideological underpinnings. Low estimates were sometimes reflective of European notions of racial superiority. Historian Francis Jennings argued, "Scholarly wisdom long held that Indians were so inferior in mind and works that they could not have created or sustained large populations."The indigenous population of the Americas in 1492 was not at a high point and may have been in decline in some areas.
Indigenous populations in most areas of the Americas reached a low point by the early 20th century. In most cases, populations have since begun to climb. Genetic diversity and population structure in the American land mass using DNA micro-satellite markers sampled from North and South America have been analyzed against similar data available from other indigenous populations worldwide; the Amerindian populations show a lower genetic diversity than populations from other continental regions. Observed is both a decreasing genetic diversity as geographic distance from the Bering Strait occurs and a decreasing genetic similarity to Siberian populations from Alaska. Observed is evidence of a higher level of diversity and lower level of population structure in western South America compared to eastern South America. A relative lack of differentiation between Mesoamerican and Andean populations is a scenario
Moche culture
The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru with its capital near present-day Moche, Peru from about 100 to 700 AD during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state. Rather, they were a group of autonomous polities that shared a common culture, as seen in the rich iconography and monumental architecture that survives today. Moche society was agriculturally based, with a significant level of investment in the construction of a network of irrigation canals for the diversion of river water to supply their crops, their culture was sophisticated. The Moche are noted for their elaborately painted ceramics, gold work, monumental constructions and irrigation systems. Moche history may be broadly divided into three periods – the emergence of the Moche culture in Early Moche, its expansion and florescence during Middle Moche, the urban nucleation and subsequent collapse in Late Moche.
The Salinar culture reigned on the north coast of Peru in 200 BC-200 AD. According to some scholars this was a short transition period between the Cupisnique and the Moche cultures. There's considerable parallelism between Moche and Cupisnique iconography and ceramic designs, including the iconography of the'Spider god'; the Moche cultural sphere is centered on several valleys on the north coast of Peru in regions La Libertad, Jequetepeque, Moche, Virú, Chao and Nepena and occupied 250 miles of desert coastline and up to 50 miles inland. The Huaca del Sol, a pyramidal adobe structure on the Rio Moche, was the largest pre-Columbian structure in Peru, but it was destroyed when Spanish Conquistadores looted its graves for gold in the 16th century; the nearby Huaca de la Luna is better preserved. Its interior walls contains many colorful murals with complex iconography; the site has been under professional archaeological excavation since the early 1990s. Other major Moche sites include Sipan, Loma Negra, Dos Cabezas, the El Brujo complex, Cerro Mayal, Huanchaco, Pañamarka.
Their adobe huacas have been destroyed by looters and natural forces over the last 1300 years. The surviving ones show that the coloring of their murals was vibrant. Two distinct regions of the Moche civilization have been identified and Northern Moche, with each area corresponding to a different political entity; the Southern Moche region, believed to be the heartland of the culture comprised the Chicama and Moche valleys, was first described by Rafael Larco Hoyle. The Huaca del Sol-Huaca de la Luna site was the capital of this region; the Northern Moche region includes three valley systems: The upper Piura Valley, around the Vicús culture region The lower Lambayeque Valley system, consisting of three rivers: La Leche, Reque and Zaña The lower Jequetepeque Valley systemThe Piura was part of the Moche phenomenon only for a short time — during its Early Moche, or Early Moche-Vicús phase — and developed independently. It appears, they all had ruling dynasties of their own, related to each other.
Centralized control of the whole Moche area may have taken place from time to time, but appears infrequent. Pampa Grande, in the Lambayeque Valley, on the shore of the Chancay River, became one of the largest Moche sites anywhere, occupied the area of more than 400 ha, it was prominent in the Moche V period, features an abundance of Moche V ceramics. The site was laid out and built in a short period of time, has an enormous ceremonial complex, it includes Huaca Fortaleza, the tallest ceremonial platform in Peru. San Jose de Moro is another northern site in the Jequetepeque valley, it was prominent in the Late Moche Periods. Numerous Moche tombs have been excavated here, including several burials containing high status female individuals; these women were depicted in Moche iconography as the Priestess. Moche pottery is some of the most varied in the world; the use of mold technology is evident. This would have enabled the mass production of certain forms, but Moche ceramics vary in shape and theme, with most important social activities documented in pottery, including war, metalwork and sex.
Traditional north coast Peruvian ceramic art uses a limited palette, relying on red and white. Moche ceramics created between 150–800 AD epitomize this style. Moche pots have been found not just at major north coast archaeological sites, such as Huaca de la luna, Huaca del sol, Sipan, but at small villages and unrecorded burial sites as well. At least 500 Moche ceramics have sexual themes; the most depicted act is anal sex, with scenes of vaginal penetration being rare. Most pairs are heterosexual, with carved genitalia to show that the anus, rather than the vagina, is being penetrated. An infant is depicted breastfeeding while the couple has sex. Fellatio is sometimes represented; some depict male skeletons being masturbated by living women. Because irrigation was the source of wealth and foundation of the empire, the Moche culture emphasized the importance of circulation and flow. Expanding upon this, Moche artwork depi
Thames & Hudson
Thames & Hudson is a publisher of illustrated books on art, architecture and visual culture. With its headquarters in London, England, it has a sister company in New York and subsidiaries in Melbourne and Hong Kong. In Paris, it has a further subsidiary company, engaged in the distribution of English-language books and a sister company, Éditions Thames & Hudson, it has been an independent, family-owned company since its founding in 1949. Thames & Hudson's World of Art series is well-known. In particular, A Concise History of Painting: From Giotto to Cézanne by Michael Levey published in 1962, is a classic and authoritative introduction to the history of European art from the beginnings of perspective in Italy to the foundations of modern art at the start of the 20th century. Thames & Hudson employs some 200 people worldwide in the London headquarters, with an annual publishing programme that releases 180 books a year on art, architecture, three-dimensional design, gardens and textiles, history, travel and interiors, popular culture.
Thames & Hudson was established by Walter Neurath, born in Vienna in 1903, his wife Eva Neurath. He left that city, where he ran an art gallery and published illustrated books with an emphasis on education, arriving in London in 1938, he worked as production director of Adprint, a business established by fellow Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foges. Neurath and Foges went on to pioneer the concept of what is today known as book packaging, in which book ideas are conceived, commissioned and sold to publishers in different markets in their own languages and under their own imprints in order to create large print-runs and lower unit production costs. Neurath’s concept was the first sign of many innovations that through Thames & Hudson he would introduce to the world of publishing. Wishing to take co-edition book packaging further and recognizing the need to amortize the high production costs of illustrated books, Neurath established his own publishing house, incorporating offices in London and New York in the autumn of 1949.
Thus arose the company name, Thames & Hudson, the rivers represented by two dolphins symbolizing friendship and intelligence, one facing east, one west, suggesting a connection between the Old World and the New. Eva Neurath, who had arrived in London in 1939 from Berlin and worked alongside Neurath at Adprint, co-founded the company as partner. Among the ten titles that were published in Thames & Hudson’s first publication season in 1950, English Cathedrals, with photographs by Swiss Martin Hürlimann, was the first and most successful. A testament to the company’s strong belief from the start in the longevity of books, it remained in print until 1971. Appearing in the first year of publication was Albert Einstein’s Out of my years, an early indication of the publication programme’s breadth. With the gradual and successful expansion of the list, which grew from ten titles in 1950 to 144 in print in 1955, the company outgrew its High Holborn offices and moved in 1956 to a Georgian townhouse at 30 Bloomsbury Street, just off Bedford Square the epicentre of London publishing activity.
The company remained at that address expanding to five houses, until 1999. In 1958, Thames & Hudson launched what is one of its best-known series, the World of Art, which for the subsequent decades provided the backbone of its varied list. Characterized by their pocketable size and black spines – "little black artbooks" – the series expanded in just seven years to include 49 titles. More than fifty years over 300 titles have appeared in the series, many remain in print today. Other major series that imparted depth and prestige to the list were Ancient People and Places, edited by Glyn Daniel, who from the 1950s helped to pioneer a wider interest in archaeology, on television and in book form. More than 100 titles were published in the series over a 34-year period; the large-format Great Civilizations series, published from 1961, featured contributions by such esteemed academics as Alan Bullock, Asa Briggs, Hugh Trevor-Roper, A. J. P. Taylor, John Julius Norwich. On Thames & Hudson’s tenth anniversary, the UK publishing industry magazine, The Bookseller, described the company as "neither wedded to eclecticism nor dedicated to mass appeal, produced some of the most ambitious picture books published... and have sold them in a number which ten years ago would have been considered improbable and at prices which have won the surprised gratitude of thousands of readers."
Throughout its history, Thames & Hudson has led production innovation: 1958, for example, saw one of the earliest examples of the close creative integration of photographer, editor and production director working to produce a unified artist’s book, in Thrones of Earth and Heaven, in a large print-run. In 1964 the company’s production director introduced what are today known as ‘French folds’, dust jackets that are folded over on top and bottom to protect their edges. In 1974, in what The Times described as "a 1,000-year-old publishing coup", Thames & Hudson painstakingly reproduced The Book of Kells, making a commercial edition of the little-seen illuminated manuscript available around the world for the first time. In 2004 a four-volume monograph on Pritzker Prize–winning architect Zaha Hadid was published, featurin
Adobe
Adobe is a building material made from earth and organic materials. Adobe is Spanish for mudbrick, but in some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, the term is used to refer to any kind of earth construction. Most adobe buildings rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, is used throughout the world. Adobe bricks are rectangular prisms small enough that they can air dry individually without cracking, they can be subsequently assembled, with the application of adobe mud to bond the individual bricks into a structure. There is no standard size, in different regions. In some areas a popular size measured 8 by 4 by 12 inches weighing about 25 pounds; the maximum sizes can reach up to 100 pounds. In dry climates, adobe structures are durable, account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. Adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, but they are known to be susceptible to earthquake damage if they are not somehow reinforced.
Cases where adobe structures were damaged during earthquakes include the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, the 2003 Bam earthquake, the 2010 Chile earthquake. Buildings made of sun-dried earth are common throughout the world Adobe had been in use by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Southwestern United States and the Andes for several thousand years. Puebloan peoples built their adobe structures with handsful or basketsful of adobe, until the Spanish introduced them to making bricks. Adobe bricks were used in Spain from Iron Ages, its wide use can be attributed to its simplicity of design and manufacture, economics. A distinction is sometimes made between the smaller adobes, which are about the size of ordinary baked bricks, the larger adobines, some of which may be one to two yards long; the word adobe has existed for around 4000 years with little change in either pronunciation or meaning. The word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian word ɟbt "mud brick". Middle Egyptian evolved into Late Egyptian, Demotic or "pre-Coptic", to Coptic, where it appeared as τωωβε tōʾpə.
This was adopted into Arabic as الطوب aṭ-ṭawbu or aṭ-ṭūbu, with the definite article al- attached. Tuba, This was assimilated into the Old Spanish language as adobe via Mozarabic. English borrowed the word from Spanish in the early 18th century, still referring to mudbrick construction. In more modern English usage, the term "adobe" has come to include a style of architecture popular in the desert climates of North America in New Mexico, regardless of the construction method. An adobe brick is a composite material made of earth mixed with water and an organic material such as straw or dung; the soil composition contains sand and clay. Straw is useful in binding the brick together and allowing the brick to dry evenly, thereby preventing cracking due to uneven shrinkage rates through the brick. Dung offers the same advantage; the most desirable soil texture for producing the mud of adobe is 15% clay, 10–30% silt, 55–75% fine sand. Another source quotes 15–25% clay and the remainder sand and coarser particles up to cobbles 50 to 250 mm, with no deleterious effect.
Modern adobe is stabilized with Portland cement up to 10 % by weight. No more than half the clay content should be expansive clays, with the remainder non-expansive illite or kaolinite. Too much expansive clay results in uneven drying through the brick, resulting in cracking, while too much kaolinite will make a weak brick; the soils of the Southwest United States, where such construction has been used, are an adequate composition. Adobe walls are load bearing, i.e. they carry their own weight into the foundation rather than by another structure, hence the adobe must have sufficient compressive strength. In the United States, most building codes call for a minimum compressive strength of 300 lbf/in2 for the adobe block. Adobe construction should be designed so as to avoid lateral structural loads that would cause bending loads; the building codes require the building sustain a 1 g lateral acceleration earthquake load. Such an acceleration will cause lateral loads on the walls, resulting in shear and bending and inducing tensile stresses.
To withstand such loads, the codes call for a tensile modulus of rupture strength of at least 50 lbf/in2 for the finished block. In addition to being an inexpensive material with a small resource cost, adobe can serve as a significant heat reservoir due to the thermal properties inherent in the massive walls typical in adobe construction. In climates typified by hot days and cool nights, the high thermal mass of adobe mediates the high and low temperatures of the day, moderating the temperature of the living space; the massive walls require a large and long input of heat from the sun and from the surrounding air before they warm through to the interior. After the sun sets and the temperature drops, the warm wall will continue to transfer heat to the interior for several hou
Ventarron
Ventarrón is the site of a 4,500-year-old temple with painted murals, excavated in Peru in 2007 near Chiclayo, in the Lambayeque region on the northern coast. The site was inhabited by the Early Cupisnique, Cupisnique and Moche cultures. On 12 November, 2017, a fire caused by farmers burning nearby sugar cane fields, damaged much of the site. Located in a valley, the complex covers about 2500 square meters; the site is about 12 miles from Sipán, a religious and political center of the Moche culture, which flourished from AD 1 to AD 700. It is about 760 km north of Peru's capital of Lima; the central complex of Ventarron includes the archaeological site of Arenal, located on a hillslope to the northeast. The temple and murals were radio carbon dated to 2000 B. C. and are thought to be the oldest discovered in the Americas. One mural on two walls depicts a deer caught in a net; the temple was constructed of bricks of river sediment rather than the stone or adobe to be traditional in the area. It contains a stairway leading to a fire altar.
Walter Alva, the Peruvian archaeologist making the discovery, commented on the findings: "What's surprising are the construction methods, the architectural design and most of all the existence of murals that could be the oldest in the Americas. He said, "The discovery of this temple reveals evidence suggesting the region of Lambayeque was one of great cultural exchange between the Pacific coast and the rest of Peru." The team discovered ceremonial offerings, including the skeletons of a parrot and a monkey, which would have come from Peru's jungle regions, shells typical of coastal Ecuador. These indicated the range of exchange. Alva and his team worked three months on the excavation, they said that the culture that built the temple had intentionally buried it when finished with its use. This helped to protect it for thousands of years. Locals have dug away at the site, taking blocks to use in constructing their own buildings. Much of the Ventarrón site had been looted in 1990 and 1992, but the thieves had not found the temple.
In the 1980s Alva led the discovery of the tomb of the Lord of Sipán and other elite ancient people at the Moche center, a much culture whose people were based in Lambayeque. The royal tomb included generations of burials from about 300 AD, or 1700 years ago. Since 2007, the excavations have been directing by Ignacio Alva who has unearthed several phases of human presence in the temple and made important new discoveries such as an ancient frieze in high relief retaining their original colors with typical Cupisnique iconography. Three temples have been discovered in this area in recent years. A Cupisnique adobe temple was discovered nearby in 2008; this temple sheds some light on the connection between the Cupisnique and the Chavin because of shared iconography. The Chavin people who came after the Cupisnique built a temple adjacent to Collud about three hundred years later. All three temples are close together, form a single archaeological site. There are numerous shared elements between these locations.
"During the Formative Period beginning in the Initial Period, the Collud-Zarpán site, situated at the northwest end of the Huaca Ventarrón Complex, was the valley’s theocratic capital. It covered more than 2 square kilometers of ceremonial architecture spread between two mounds aligned east to west." Andean preceramic Huaca Prieta
Larco Museum
The Museo Larco is a owned museum of pre-Columbian art, located in the Pueblo Libre District of Lima, Peru. The museum is housed in an 18th-century vice-royal building, it showcases chronological galleries that provide a thorough overview of 5,000 years of Peruvian pre-Columbian history. It is well known for its gallery of pre-Columbian erotic pottery. In 1925, Rafael Larco Herrera acquired a collection of vases and other archaeological pieces from Alfredo Hoyle, his brother-in-law. There were 600 ceramic pieces in all; the arrival of these objects ignited a collector's enthusiasm in his son, Rafael Larco Hoyle. Soon after, Larco Herrera left his son in charge of the collection and those pieces completed the first collection of what would become the Rafael Larco Herrera Museum. During that same year, Larco Hoyle received some advice from his uncle, Victor Larco Herrera, a founder of the first museum in Lima, he urged Larco Hoyle to form a new museum in Lima, one that could guard all the archaeological relics that were continually being extracted by clandestine excavators.
Larco Hoyle agreed with his uncle and proceeded to create a museum that would carry on his father's legacy. Larco Hoyle purchased two large collections: 8,000 pieces from 6,000 pieces from Carranza, he purchased several small collections in Chicama Valley, Virú, Chimbote. Within a year, the collection had grown and display cases were installed in a small house on the Chiclín estate. On July 28, 1926, Independence Day, the museum opened to the public as Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera; the Larco Museum now lends some of its collection to its daughter museum, the Museo de Arte Precolombino, located in Cusco, Peru. The Museum has several permanent exhibitions; the Gold and Silver Gallery showcases the largest collection of jewelry used by many notable rulers of pre-Columbian Peru. It comprises a collection of crowns, nose ornaments, garments and vases, finely wrought in gold and decorated with semi-precious stones. Ancient Peruvian cultures represented their daily lives in ceramics, this gallery holds the world's largest collection of erotic ceramics.
The Cultures Gallery exhibits 10,000 years of Peruvian pre-Columbian history. This chronology-based gallery provides visitors with a comprehensive view of cultures that existed in pre-Columbian Peru through the extant indigenous art that has survived since the 16th century Spanish conquest; this hall is divided into four areas: North Coast, Center and cultures from the highlands. Showcases have been ordered according to cultural sequence: From the North Coast: Cupisnique, Vicus and Chimu. Other galleries include the Lithic, Ceramics, Metals and Storage in which visitors have the opportunity to view the Museum's entire collection of classified archaeological objects. In addition to its permanent exhibits, the Larco Museum lends its collections to several museums and cultural centers around the world; this hall displays the selection of archaeological objects found by Rafael Larco Hoyle in the 1960s, as a result of his research on sexual representations in Peruvian pre-Columbian art, published in his book, "Checan".
The Museum Gallery Shop has a wide variety of ceramic and textile reproductions made by skilled craftsmen from all over Peru. The museum has formalized the reproduction techniques for these pre-Columbian artifacts and assesses each piece to ensure quality. Berrin, Katherine & Larco Museum; the Spirit of Ancient Peru: Treasures from the Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Larco Museum Homepage Los Mochicas http://cafe.museolarco.org/
Department of La Libertad
La Libertad is a region in northwestern Peru. It was known as the Department of La Libertad, it is bordered by the Lambayeque and Amazonas regions on the north, the San Martín Region on the east, the Ancash and Huánuco regions on the south and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Its capital is Trujillo, the nation's third biggest city; the region's main port is one of Peru's largest ports. The name of the region is Spanish for "freedom" or "liberty". During the viceroyalty of Peru, the La Libertad region, together with the present-day regions of Lambayeque and Tumbes regions in Peru, Guayaquil and El Oro Province in Ecuador, were all within the jurisdiction of the Intendencía de Trujillo; these were included in the domain of the city of Trujillo. After the Intendencía joined the emancipation cause and was the first to gain independence from Spain, in 1825 the Congress of the Peruvian republic changed the name to Departmento de la Libertad. Since the late 20th century, Peru has decentralized its government.
All former Departments in Peru are now called Regions. La Libertad is the only Peruvian region that includes all three natural regions of the nation: coast and selva. Trujillo, the capital, has a strategic location, near. Seen from Trujillo, the Andes appears as a row of low-elevation hills; the Andean Plateau increases altitude to the east, in the provinces of Otuzco and Santiago de Chuco. These two provinces comprise the Pacific hydrographic watershed, which give rise to the Moche and Virú rivers, to the south, Chicama River to the north. Pacasmayo Province, located more to the north, is along the coast. To the east, Sánchez Carrión Province waterways drain into the Amazon River and thus belong to the Atlantic Ocean watershed. La Libertad region is the third-most populous in Peru, it was surpassed only by the Department of Piura. In 2012 its capital Trujillo is the second-most populated metropolitan area in Peru and the largest city in northern Peru; the largest population is concentrated in provincial capitals and districts, which comprise the majority urban population in La Libertad region.
The migrant population to the region comes from border departments and immigrants from other countries. The principal cities in La Libertad region are shown in the next table; the Region is separated into 12 provinces, political divisions that correspond to counties in the United States of America. A Peruvian Region has as its head political executive a an elected official; the head political executive of each province is a lieutenant governor, an official appointed by the governor. These 12 provinces comprise a total of 80 districts; the provinces, with their capitals are: Some of the main companies in La Libertad Region are the following: Cementos Pacasmayo, It manufactures cement and it is based in Pacasmayo Province. Sociedad Agrícola Virú, dedicated to agribusiness and based in Virú Province. SEDALIB, water supply and sanitation company based in Trujillo city. Caja Trujillo, banking company centered in Trujillo. Cesar Vallejo University, based in Víctor Larco city The coastal strip set the stage for the rise of many pre-Columbian cultures, such as the pre-Ceramic Huaca Prieta civilization, more than 5,000 years old & the Cupisnique, more than 3,000 years old.
From 200 A. C. the first one to expand beyond its cradle was the Mochica culture. It was an agriculture and/or a warrior culture, which built countless temples and palaces such as the Sol, Luna, El Brujo & Cao Viejo, other huacas; the Chimú culture emerged and built its capital in Chan Chan, the largest pre-Columbian city in South America, & huacas like Esmeralda & Arco Iris. At its zenith, Chan Chan was home to 60,000 inhabitants who stubbornly resisted the expansion of the Inca Empire; these ancient cultures used irrigation canals and water reservoirs, which systems were better engineered and extensive over the years. The technological acumen of these sophisticated agricultural systems was carried into the Inca Empire, which surrounded the remnants of the prior cultures; the Spanish colonizers destroyed most of the agricultural works to more establish political control and provide de facto slave labor from the displaced native agriculturalists. The archaeological remains of Chan Chan, 6 km northeast of downtown Trujillo, are rather well-preserved despite being built out of adobe because 1) dearth of rainfall and consequent erosion, 2) lack of significant re-use of its construction materials.
During the Late Moche phase, one of the largest power centers of the region was the fortified site of Cerro Chepén in the Jequetepeque Valley. It is located 3 km to the south of the site of San José de Moro. Cerro Chepén has a sophisticated system of fortifications, a dominant position on top of the hill, with many monumental buildings. Recent excavations at the site revealed that there was much internal conflict there that affected local communities; some of the archeological sites in La Libertad Region are: Cha
