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The Norte Chico civilization (also Caral or Caral-Supe civilization)〔The name is disputed. English-language sources use Norte Chico (Spanish: "Little North") per Haas ''et al.'' (2004). Caral or Caral-Supe are more likely to be found in Spanish language sources per Shady. This article follows usage in recent English-language sources and employs Norte Chico, but the title is not definitive. Peruvian Norte Chico should not be confused with the Chilean region of the same name.〕 was a complex pre-Columbian society that included as many as 30 major population centers in what is now the Norte Chico region of north-central coastal Peru. Since the early 21st century, it has been established as the oldest known civilization in the Americas and one of the six sites where civilization originated independently in the ancient world. It flourished between 3rd and 1st millennia BC. The alternative name, Caral-Supe, is derived from the Sacred City of Caral〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Sacred City of Caral-Supe )〕 in the Supe Valley, a large and well-studied Norte Chico site. Complex society in Norte Chico arose a millennium after Sumer in Mesopotamia, was contemporaneous with the Egyptian pyramids, and predated the Mesoamerican Olmec by nearly two millennia. In archaeological nomenclature, Norte Chico is a pre-ceramic culture of the pre-Columbian Late Archaic; it completely lacked ceramics and apparently had almost no visual art. The most impressive achievement of the civilization was its monumental architecture, including large earthwork platform mounds and sunken circular plazas. Archaeological evidence suggests use of textile technology and, possibly, the worship of common god symbols, both of which recur in pre-Columbian Andean cultures. Sophisticated government is assumed to have been required to manage the ancient Norte Chico. Questions remain over its organization, particularly the influence of food resources on politics. Some scholars have suggested that Norte Chico was founded on seafood and maritime resources, rather than development of an agricultural cereal and crop surpluses, as has been considered essential to the rise of other ancient civilizations. Archaeologists have been aware of ancient sites in the area since at least the 1940s; early work occurred at Aspero on the coast, a site identified as early as 1905,〔 "We see the site as a 'peaking' of an essentially non-agricultural economy. Subsistence was still, basically, from the sea. But such subsistence supported a sedentary style of life, with communities of appreciable size."〕 and later at Caral further inland. In the late 1990s Peruvian archaeologists, led by Dr. Ruth Shady Solís, provided the first extensive documentation of the civilization with work at Caral. A 2001 paper in ''Science'', providing a survey of the Caral research, and a 2004 article in ''Nature'', describing fieldwork and radiocarbon dating across a wider area, revealed Norte Chico's full significance and led to widespread interest.〔See (CNN ), for instance. Given the tentative nature of much research surrounding Norte Chico, readers should be cautious of claims in general news sources.〕 == History and geography == Andean Peru has been recognized as one of six global areas where there was independent, indigenous development of civilization, and as one of two, along with Mesoamerica, in the Western Hemisphere.〔 Norte Chico has pushed back the horizon for complex societies in the Peruvian region by more than one thousand years. The Chavín culture, circa 900 BC, had long been considered the first civilization of the area. It is still regularly cited as such in general works.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=History of Peru )〕〔 "The implied laggardness appears disproven by Norte Chico; in his work, Mann is sharply critical of the inattention provided the Pre-Columbian Americas."〕 The discovery of Norte Chico has also shifted the focus of research away from the highland areas of the Andes and lowlands adjacent to the mountains (where the Chavín, and later Inca, had their major centers) to the Peruvian littoral, or coastal regions. Norte Chico is located in a north-central area of the coast, approximately 150 to 200 km north of Lima, roughly bounded by the Lurín Valley on the south and the Casma Valley on the north. It comprises four coastal valleys: the Huaura, Supe, Pativilca, and Fortaleza; known sites are concentrated in the latter three, which share a common coastal plain. The three principal valleys cover only 1,800 km², and research has emphasized the density of the population centers. The Peruvian littoral appears an "improbable, even aberrant" candidate for the "pristine" development of civilization, compared to other world centers. It is extremely arid, bounded by two rain shadows (caused by the Andes to the east, and the Pacific trade winds to the west). The region is punctuated by more than 50 rivers that carry Andean snowmelt. The development of widespread irrigation from these water sources is seen as decisive in the emergence of Norte Chico;〔"The claim in this ''Science'' 'News of the Week' column that Caral is the oldest urban center in the Americas is highly uncertain."〕 since all of the monumental architecture at various sites has been found close to irrigation channels. The radiocarbon work of Jonathan Haas ''et al.'', found that 10 of 95 samples taken in the Pativilca and Fortaleza areas dated from before 3500 BC; the oldest, dating from 9210 BC, provides "limited indication" of human settlement during the Pre-Columbian Early Archaic era. Two dates of 3700 BC are associated with communal architecture, but are likely to be anomalous. It is from 3200 BC onward that large-scale human settlement and communal construction are clearly apparent.〔 Mann, in a survey of the literature in 2005, suggests "sometime before 3200 BC, and possibly before 3500 BC" as the beginning date of the Norte Chico formative period. He notes that the earliest date securely associated with a city is 3500 BC, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area of the north, based on Haas' dates.〔 Haas' early third millennium dates suggest that the development of coastal and inland sites occurred in parallel. But, from 2500 to 2000 BC, during the period of greatest expansion, the population and development decisively shifted toward the inland sites. All development apparently occurred at large interior sites such as Caral, though they remained dependent on fish and shellfish from the coast.〔 The peak in dates is in keeping with Shady's dates at Caral, which show habitation from 2627 BC to 2020 BC.〔 That coastal and inland sites developed in tandem remains disputed, however (see next section). Circa 1800 BC, the Norte Chico civilization began to decline, with more powerful centers appearing to the south and north along the coast, and to the east inside the belt of the Andes. Norte Chico's success at irrigation-based agriculture may have contributed to its being eclipsed. One researcher notes that "when this civilization is in decline, we begin to find extensive canals farther north. People were moving to more fertile ground and taking their knowledge of irrigation with them."〔 It would be a thousand years before the rise of the next great Peruvian culture, the Chavín. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Norte Chico civilization」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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