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Human evolution: Giant earth mounds found in Peru much earlier than thought

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Viewed from the entrance to a 4,000 year old temple at the site, the sun rises over this pillar during the equinox/Google Earth Pro)

From “Rare Animal-Shaped Mounds Discovered in Peru” (ScienceDaily, Mar. 29, 2012), we learn,

For more than a century and a half, scientists and tourists have visited massive animal-shaped mounds, such as Serpent Mound in Ohio, created by the indigenous people of North America. But few animal effigy mounds had been found in South America until University of Missouri anthropology professor emeritus Robert Benfer identified numerous earthen animals rising above the coastal plains of Peru, a region already renowned for the Nazca lines, the ruined city of Chan Chan, and other cultural treasures.

“The mounds will draw tourists, one day,” Benfer said. “Some of them are more than 4,000 years old. Compare that to the effigy mounds of North America, which date to between 400 and 1200 AD. The oldest Peruvian mounds were being built at the same time as the pyramids in Egypt.”

Google Earth images of the mounds revealed the shapes of birds, including a giant condor, a 5,000 year-old orca, a duck, and a caiman/puma monster seen in bone and rock carvings from the area.

Some think that, apart from their religious and cultural significance, they provided astronomical observations useful to farmers:

“For example, knowing that December 21 had passed was very important. If there was no sign of an El Niño by then, fishers would know they would have another good year, and farmers would face neither drought nor floods,” Benfer said.

This is a relatively minor “earlier than thought” – compared to pushing back what we know by hundreds of thousands of years – but every little bit helps.

See also: Timing of human use of fire pushed back by 300,000 years

and Site shows religion, not agriculture, was prehistoric organizing force

Also: Were people cooking two million years ago?

Comments
I will not hold with the ancient alien theme but I know it was not the chinese that did these things.Jonas
April 5, 2012
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Fun's over. All fixed now.SCheesman
April 3, 2012
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See also: Timing of human use of fire pushed back by 300 million years
Wow, are these added items being machine-produced? The comments are starting to pile up on what must be the most outrageous title error in UD history over on the original post. How long will it take before a mod notices and does something?SCheesman
April 3, 2012
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