THE EARLY PIONEER PEOPLES OF PERU

The Inca were certainly not the only civilisation to leave a lasting impression on the Andes

- SPENCER MIZEN

When it comes to telling the history of pre-Columbian Peru, there has traditionally been just one empire that has dominated the headlines. That is, of course, the Inca. But that mighty imperium on South America's western seaboard would reach its zenith in the 15th and 16th centuries, which leaves around two millennia where a cluster of other civilisations burned brightly before fading away in the shadows of the Andes. In many ways, these realms were every bit as sophisticated as their more celebrated successor.

The Nazca, who thrived in southern Peru between c200 BC and AD 650, were a people of skilled craftsmen who produced elaborate textiles and ceramics. Agriculture was central to their way of life, growing crops such as maize, squash and sweet potatoes. And while the Inca are noted for practising human sacrifice, archaeological excavations suggest that the Nazca were carrying out ritualistic killings to propitiate the gods more than 1,000 years earlier. Excavated burials have revealed victims with eyes blocked and excrement placed in their mouths. It is a ghoulish image, but part of the developed Nazca belief system.

There was more to the Nazca than blood and butchery, though. They created colossal geoglyphs (see box on opposite page), and Nazca shaman are thought to have worked themselves up into drug-induced trances before appealing to the spirits of nature to serve up a good harvest. These entreaties appeared to have worked until the seventh century AD, for that was when the culture collapsed. We cannot be sure what caused the Nazca to disappear. Scientists have theorised that an extreme climate event, such as intense flooding, might have dealt the fatal blow.

WONDERS OF THE WARI