THE ancient city of Caral in Peru was built about the same time as the great
pyramids of Egypt, say archaeologists.
New radiocarbon dates reveal that the construction of stone platform mounds
in Caral started about 2600 BC, several hundred years before other large cities
sprang up in the Americas.
The settlement may give us the earliest view yet of the pristine development
of complex society, says Jonathan Haas, an archaeologist at the Field Museum in
Chicago, who did the dating. Although other early cities around the globe show
traces of outside influences, Caral shows no sign of being influenced…
