ETCHED into this fragment of a gourd bowl (right) is an image of a god, the first known from the Americas. It shows that not only did Andeans develop irrigation and build the continent’s first pyramids, they created the New World’s earliest religious image.
Two fragments of gourd bowls found at separate burial sites in the valley of Peru’s Patavilca river are incised with an image of the “staff god”, a major deity of later Andean cultures. A fragment of one gourd has been carbon dated to 2250 BC, clear evidence that Andean religion arose a thousand years earlier than…
