📋 Tender Overview
The investigations carried out since 2012 in the old urban center El Molino of the Supe Valley, where the Caral civilization flourished, under the direction of Dr. Ruth Shady Solís, director of the Caral Archaeological Zone (ZAC), Executing Unit 003 of the Ministry of Culture, have revealed details associated with the planning and organization of the ancient Andean urban centers.
At the top of the public building (subsector C1) of El Molino, a settlement located in the lower section of the Supe Valley (Barranca province – Lima Region), north-central area of Peru, archaeologists discovered a well-preserved model, which reveals an urban design, consisting of a set of pyramidal buildings, whose main facades were oriented to a central public space. It demonstrates the planning of the ancient urban planners of the Andes.
The model was made with clay and small boulders (river stones). It is composed of seven buildings, which have an average height of 20 centimeters, with approximately 1 m to 1.20 m side.
This model, discovered in 2017, was studied and preserved by the archaeologists of the ZAC, and has been presented as exceptional evidence of the existence of specialists in architecture, whose work consisted of planning the urban design of the settlements, distributed in the varied ecology of the valley.
THE MOLINO
Between 1994 and 1995, archaeologist Ruth Shady and her research team conducted an archaeological prospection in the Supe Valley and included El Molino among the early urban centers of the valley. This settlement has an area of 7.57 hectares, and was built on an alluvial plain formed by clay deposits from the Supe River.
The location of the settlement, belonging to the Formative Period (2200-1500 BC), allowed its inhabitants easy access to the resources of the river and the riparian forest, to the springs, the farmlands and to the roads that led to the Tayta Laynes ravine and the coast. On August 1, 2002 the archaeological site was declared Cultural Heritage of the Nation.
The Mill was made up of a larger pyramidal public building (Sector A) and two smaller pyramidal public buildings (sectors B and C). These buildings were erected around an open public space of almost one hectare in extension. In the back of the buildings of sectors A and B, sector E is located where remains of houses were found. Also, a few meters southwest of the buildings installed a small residential complex (Sector D).
In the deposits of the greater and lesser pyramidal buildings, remains of marine molluscs have been recovered, such as choro zapato, macha, oliva, black snail and chanque. Among the fish, anchovy and sardine. There are also plant remains, such as guava, pumpkin, beans and cotton. It was, in short, a mixed subsistence economy, agro-fishing, enhanced by the exchange of cotton.
Due to the characteristics of the components of the city, it can be said that the society of El Molino was hierarchical. The halls with central fire pits surrounded by sidewalks, located at the top of the buildings, are testimony to the performance of ceremonies in which elite settlers participated.
In addition, the imposing size of the buildings was a result of the ability of the drivers of them to manage the design and workforce needed to build them. Its functions would have been related to the articulation of the flow of resources that circulated between the coast and other urban centers such as Piedra Parada and Era de Pando.
DATUM
At the moment this urban center is not open to the public, but research, conservation and protection of the archaeological site are carried out daily.
Since 1994, the Caral Archaeological Zone, under the direction of Dr. Ruth Shady Solís, investigates in twelve urban centers, of 25 identified, linked to the Caral civilization, considered one of the civilizational centers of the world and the first in the American continent.
