Chavín culture

Chavín was not a kingdom but an archaeological culture: a shared religious and artistic tradition that spread across much of what is now Peru in the first millennium BCE. It takes its name from Chavín de Huántar, a great temple complex in the northern Andean highlands, and is usually dated from around 900 to around 250 BCE. No written records survive, and what is known of its people, whose own name for themselves is lost, comes from architecture, stone carving, pottery and burials.

Chavín de Huántar stands at about 3,150 metres, where the Mosna and Huachecsa rivers meet, in today's Ancash Region. The valley reaches several ecological zones, from farmland to high grassland. Builders worked on the complex in at least 15 phases. The so-called Old Temple went up between roughly 900 and 500 BCE, and the New Temple was added between about 500 and 200 BCE, forming a U-shaped arrangement of platforms around sunken plazas. Its earlier roots lie in older highland traditions such as Kotosh.

Inside the platforms runs a maze of stone galleries, narrow passages, ventilation shafts and drainage canals. The galleries are windowless, with sharp turns and changing floor levels, apparently designed to disorient visitors. Water rushing through the canals in the rainy season may have produced a roaring sound. The builders used white granite and black limestone brought from some distance away.

At the heart of the Old Temple stands the Lanzón, a carved granite shaft about 4.5 metres tall showing a fanged being, thought to be the main deity or a founding ancestor with oracular powers. Other famous works include the Tello Obelisk, the Raimondi Stela and the tenon heads, stone heads with jaguar fangs set into the temple walls. Chavín art blends human features with jaguars, eagles, serpents and caymans, and uses deliberately complex, interlocking designs that only initiates may have been able to read. Carvings show figures holding the San Pedro cactus, which contains mescaline, and snuff equipment has been found, suggesting the ritual use of mind-altering plants. Shell trumpets were played in the galleries.

Scholars see Chavín de Huántar as a pilgrimage and ceremonial centre rather than the capital of an empire. There is little sign of warfare: no clear defences, and no warriors in the art. Many archaeologists argue that a small priestly elite gained authority by claiming special access to the divine, staging ceremonies in spaces that grew more restricted over time. The square plaza could have held about 5,200 people, while only around 15 could have stood in the Lanzón gallery.

People grew potatoes and quinoa, and isotope studies show that maize was not a staple. Llamas and other camelids were herded for transport, wool and meat. Metalworkers produced fine gold objects. Archaeologists divide the site's history into three ceramic phases, from small dispersed settlements to a more crowded, socially divided town in the last phase, around 400 to 250 BCE. The Chavín style itself spread from the far north coast to Paracas in the south, carried by trade and religion rather than conquest.

The tradition faded in the last centuries BCE, and the dates for its end vary between sources. Later Andean cultures, such as the Moche, arose in a landscape that Chavín had helped to link together. Its art is often called the first widespread recognisable style in the Andes, a forerunner of later states such as the Inca Empire. Chavín de Huántar, in modern Peru, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Our maps label the Chavín area, shown simply as Chavin, from 1000 BCE through 700, 500, 400, 323, 300 and 200 BCE to 100 BCE, with Paracas beside it on the later maps; this outline marks a zone of cultural influence rather than a state border. The 1000, 200 and 100 BCE maps fall slightly outside the usual dates of about 900 to 250 BCE.