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There have been people living along the Peruvian coastline for thousands of years, since before 3,000 BCE, weaving cotton, and, planting corn, squash, and beans. The first noted appearance of the Incans in Peru was around 1200 ACE when Manco Capac founded Cusco. Although Peru and the Andes have been acknowledged as a catalytic crucible for the emergence of a millennia long string of diverse cultures, there is evidence of ancient communities in Peru dating back many thousands of years. Only scanty knowledge about the daily lives of their inhabitants has been gleamed from the scattered remnants of such ancient cultures as the Chavin, Chimu, Huari, Moche, Nazca, Paracas, and Tiahuanacu. The oldest of the high Andean cultures was the Chavin culture which lasted from around 1200 to 200 BCE. Their capital was Chavin de Huantar, a stone city built in a narrow valley in the central Andes. The Paracas culture from about 1100 to 200 BCE was renown for its textile weavings. The Moche culture from about 200 BCE to 700 ACE was a caste orientated society with highly skilled craftsmen. The Nazca culture from around 400 BCE to 600 ACE left behind a number of mysterious desert plateau drawings. The Huari culture from about 200 to 600 ACE was a warrior society whose polychromatic pottery had austerely stylized religious imagery. The Chimu culture from around 1100 to 1470 ACE had irrigated gardens and step pyramids. Much of the past of ancient Peru still remains steeped in conjecture and mystery. Even though there is a lot of data available about the Incas, it was compiled by the Spanish who conquered them in 1533, and, like Roman accounts about the Celts, it was written from the perspective of the vanquisher.
The Inca, who were conqueror
themselves, did not have a writing system. They were never creative originators,
instead, they were very good adapters, integrators, and organizers. The Inca
readily assimilated the cultural inheritances of the peoples they conquered.
They continued the excellence of the high quality designs of the Central Andean
textiles and metalwork, with goldsmithing being an Inca specialty. Inca pottery,
however, was undistinguished and mass produced like that of the Chimu.
Since none of the ancient Peruvian cultures kept written records, most of the truly informative data obtained about the Peruvian Cultures was derived from archaeological sites, graves, graphically illustrated ceramics, stylized metalwork, and stone sculptures. For instance, researchers found small metal foils made around 1400 to 1100 BCE at the base of a flat topped, 71 feet high, pyramid at Mina Perdida, a site in the central coastal area of Peru. After viewing the metal foils in the context of the surrounding buildings, where the walls had been decorated with intricate sculptures of deities, the conclusion was drawn that the metal foils were religious in nature. Recent archaeological findings have also shed some light on the religious practices of the Incas. Thousands of five hundred year old mummies have recently been retrieved from a site near Lima, Peru, along with animal skins, food, and pottery. The mummified bodies come from all levels of Inca society, and, the high ranking ones were adorned with feathered headdresses. At another Inca site on top of Mount Ampato, an arrangement of statuettes dressed in feathers and woolens was found where a female child underwent the mysterious practice of "capacocha" (an honored ritual sacrifice to propitiate the gods). Anthropologists also discovered the frozen, five hundred year old remains of three Incas on the snow covered, sacred Peruvian peak of Mount Ampato in 1995. Artifacts found at the site revealed new information about the Inca, indicating that they used poles and tents rather than the traditional stone structures attributed to them.
Anthropologists,
archaeologists, explorers, researchers, and scientists continue to discover new
sites, attributing the building of most of the massive stone structures to the
Inca, despite the fact that they have been unable to explain how they achieved
such monumental heights in construction. Some of the more recent finds are
Corihuayrachina, Cota Coca, and a stone portal doorway in Cuzco...Continue
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Peruvian Ancient Civilization 
