Ancient Peruvian Ruins (1 reply)

I was recently watching a video on the "ignored" ancient ruins in Peru and the western coast of South America. I had no idea, but you can clearly see ancient large settlements along the coast, many of which are being wiped out for farming and mango orchards. One area in particular, near El Castillo, Peru, is covered in ruins.

During the video an archeologist being interviewed commented that one of the "perplexing" things of these ruins is they are so far from water and situated in the harsh desert regions, and stating that the ruins are estimated to be around 6000 years old.

Now 6 thousand years ago, from what I can ascertain, the earth was still a lot cooler than it is now and there were still a lot more and larger ice fields. Looking at the Peruvian coast you can see that even now there are small glaciers and permeant snow capped mountains. Chances are that mountain region would have had been still covered in glaciers with the colder environment. Here is a view of the region near El Castillo:



Before looking at the ruins, if you look at the surrounding terrain first. Today there is a small river coming out of the mountains, and the towns and farms are situated along it. If you increase the amount of outflow from the mountains due to the increase in melting ice fields you can see where the water would have been flowing, and chances are there was a large bay on the river near the Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke.



Looking at the satellite view of the area you can also see where the old river carved out the shoreline.



When you then look at how the ruins are all situated long the old shore and you can realize that these people didn't build in a desert, chances are the entire area was fertile islands.



Using that idea, if you start looking around the area and following the old shore lines, you start seeing ruin after ruin. And not just the area near El Castillo, up and down the coast line you can see the outline of the ruins along the old shores.