Learn about the History of Ancash, one of the oldest regions of Peru.

ancash

Cradle of the Chavin culture and home to Chavin de Huantar, Ancash has some of the oldest archaeological remains in Peru. We invite you to learn about the history of this region.

Guarded by the Cordilleras Negra and Blanca, Ancash is the right place to connect with the Andes and its millenary history. In this region north of Lima, the mythical Callejón de Huaylas and the beautiful Llanganuco Lagoon are located. It is the cradle of civilization in Peru, territory of great empires and province that contributed greatly to the independence of Peru. Today we give you to know the history of our oldest region.

ANCASH AND ANCIENT PERU

Among the oldest human settlements we know of in Peru is Guitarrero, a cave in the Yungay Mountains that more than 14,000 years ago gave refuge and allowed prehistoric Peruvians to survive and gradually dominate the territory. 7,000 years ago, they began to cultivate beans, pallares, chili peppers, oyucos and various Andean fruits.

With the tools that agriculture provided them, these men and women built. Religion, worship and ceremonies allowed the development of Sechin and Punkuri, as well as La Galgada and architecture in the Chuquicara and Santa river basins between 2700 and 2000 BC. According to archaeologist Julio César Tello, Peruvian culture is autochthonous and these vestiges are proof of this hypothesis.

The TEMPLE OF WATERS: CHAVÍN

Chavín was both a culture and an important ceremonial center, where people from different towns went. According to the most current research, Chavín de Huántar had the function of a great oracle where pilgrims came from different areas of the Andes to worship different gods, particularly the God of Water. All this occurred around 1000 BC, more than 2000 years before Machupicchu and the Incas.

The Chavín were good farmers. They produced corn on a large scale and used looms to make cotton clothing with wool trimmings. But their legacy is found above all in the carving of symbols and sculptures of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures such as the Raimondi Stela, the Monolithic Lanzon and the Cabezas Clavas, stone sculptures that decorated the fortresses and temples. Several historians consider that its architecture shows the influence of pilgrims who came from as far away as the Amazon.

THE MOST EXTENSIVE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AMERICA

In the sixth year of Pachacútec’s rule, his brother Cápac Yupanqui led a force of 30,000 soldiers in a campaign against the Huancas in the newly created Chinchaysuyo, north of Cusco. According to the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, they resisted fiercely, but the territory was conquered: the ancient region of the Chavín, which had passed through the influence of the Moche, Chimú and Wari kingdoms at its greatest extent. Yupanqui took it upon himself to organize, once again, the territory.

During his time as Sapa Inca, Yupanqui organized campaigns of conquest in the Chinchaysuyo. He advanced as far as Maraycalle and demanded the surrender of the Huaylas, Piscopampa, Huaris and Cunchucu, but these were not conquered until between 1460 and 1480. It was twelve years before Christopher Columbus set foot in the Caribbean in October 1492; some four decades before the capture of Atahualpa in Cajamarca, Chinchaysuyo.

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