Abandoned 4,700-year-old plaza — unlike any other — unearthed on mountaintop in Peru
Around the same time that a group of people arranged the rocks we call Stonehenge, another community halfway around the world were also rearranging some rocks.
This ancient community was building a structure unlike any other on a mountain in what we now call Peru.
Over 4,700 years later, the abandoned structure still stands — and archaeologists just found it.
A group of archaeologists led by Jason Toohey uncovered the structure while studying the Callacpuma archaeological site, the University of Wyoming said in a Feb. 14 news release.
Callacpuma spans several miles, with ancient terraces, mounds and over 100 panels of rock art scattered across the site, according to a Feb. 14 study in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. One unique set of ruins stood out.
The ruins had several large, upright stones that formed two concentric circles.
The structure “had been known to, and visited by, local people for a long time,” Toohey, the project’s lead archaeologist and the study’s lead co-author, told McClathy News via email. “Our archaeological team is simply the first to systematically study it, and conduct excavations.”
Archaeologists identified it as a 4,700-year-old megalithic plaza likely used as a “ceremonial” space.
The ancient plaza had a circular interior with “two to three small, enclosed rooms” on one side, the study said. The two rings of megalithic stones formed a corridor with a limited number of entrances, allowing access to the interior to be “controlled.”
“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 in the release.
Inside the plaza, excavations unearthed pottery fragments, a pair of “cuplike vessels,” some “quartz crystals” and several stacks of bowls, researchers said. The stacks were likely an offering to formally close one of the plaza’s entrances — and maybe even the entire plaza.
The “monumental” plaza was built “as early as” 2850 B.C., used “periodically” and then abandoned by 200 B.C., the study said.
“This structure was built approximately 100 years before the Great Pyramids of Egypt and around the same time as Stonehenge,” Toohey said.
The Callacpuma plaza is one of the oldest structures of its kind found in the Americas, archaeologists said.
Other ancient circular plazas have been found in the Andes mountains, but these were “sunken” into the ground, had “finely plastered walls” and built more recently. The structure in Callacpuma “diverges from (this) broader tradition,” the study said.
The 4,700-year-old plaza was located in 2015. Excavations lasted until 2022. Next, the team will scan the area for “buried walls and other features” that might be linked to the plaza, Toohey told McClatchy News.
Callacpuma is in the Cajamarca Valley in northern Peru, about 350 miles north of Lima.
The research team included Jason Toohey, Melissa Murphy, Patricia Chirinos Ogata, Sarah Stagg and Alex Garcia-Putnam.
This story was originally published February 16, 2024 at 1:39 PM with the headline "Abandoned 4,700-year-old plaza — unlike any other — unearthed on mountaintop in Peru."
