LARAMIE, WYOMING—According to a statement released by the University of Wyoming, a monumental circular plaza made up of two concentric walls has been discovered in the Andes Mountains of northern Peru by Jason Toohey and Melissa Murphy of the University of Wyoming, Patricia Chirinos Ogata of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and their colleagues. The plaza, constructed with upright megaliths at the Callacpuma archaeological site, measures about 60 feet in diameter and has been radiocarbon dated to 4,750 years ago with charcoal samples uncovered within the plaza. “It was probably a gathering place and ceremonial location for some of the earliest people living in this part of the Cajamarca Valley,” Toohey said. “These people were living a primarily hunting and gathering lifestyle and probably had only recently begun growing crops and domesticating animals,” he added. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances. To read about an Andean city built in northern Peru’s Moche River Valley a millennium ago, go to “Peru’s Great Urban Experiment.”
