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Article: Sudden civilized: new finds push back Americas' first society.(This Week)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- January 1, 2005
- Author:
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The earliest known civilization in the Americas emerged about 5,000 years ago in what's now Peru, a team of archaeologists finds. Until now, it wasn't clear that the Peruvian sites examined were older than about 3,800 years or that they had been part of the same society.
New excavations and radiocarbon dates indicate that more than 20 large settlements, which cover a 700-square-mile area in four river valleys of the Andes, belonged to a culture that lasted from about 5,000 to 3,800 years ago.
"It's stunning that so many sites were organized at the same time around terraced pyramids, sunken plazas, and irrigated fields," says Jonathan Haas of the Field ...