rekordy: Caral–Supe civilization

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Caral–Supe (also known as Caral and Norte Chico) was a complex pre-Columbian era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Caral region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the 4th and 2nd millennia BCE, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BCE, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area. From 3100 BCE onward, large-scale human settlement and communal construction become clearly apparent. This lasted until a period of decline around 1800 BCE. Since the early 21st century, it has been recognized as the oldest-known civilization in the New World, and as one of the six sites where civilization sepa…

Evidence: 26 • authority: 72

The Olmecs () or Olmec were an early major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from roughly 1200 to 400 BC during Mesoamerica's formative period. They are known as one of the cradles of civilization. The Olmecs were initially centered at the site of their development in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, but moved to La Venta in the 10th century BC following the decline of San Lorenzo. By about 400 BC the major centres of the Olmec civilization had been abandoned, and the population of the eastern half of the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously. The settlement density in that area remained much lower than during the height of Olmec domina…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

In the history of the Americas, pre-Columbian era, also known as pre-contact era, pre-Hispanic or as pre-Cabraline era (the latter specifically framed in Brazil), spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. This era encompasses the history of Indigenous cultures prior to significant European influence, which in some cases did not occur until decades or even centuries after Columbus's arrival. During the pre-Columbian era, many civilizations developed permanent settlements, cities, agricultural practices, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks, and complex…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

Sumer ( SOO-mər) is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the 5th and 4th millennium BC. Like nearby Elam, it is one of the cradles of civilization, along with Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Erligang culture of the Yellow River valley, Caral-Supe, and Mesoamerica. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, a surplus of which enabled them to form urban settlements. The world's earliest known texts come from the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between c. 335…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

The Andean civilizations were South American complex societies of many indigenous people. They stretched down the spine of the Andes for 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from southern Colombia, to Ecuador and Peru, including the deserts of coastal Peru, to north Chile and northwest Argentina. Archaeologists believe that Andean civilizations first developed on the narrow coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. The Caral or Norte Chico civilization of coastal Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, dating back to 3500 BCE. Andean civilizations are one of at least five civilizations in the world deemed by scholars to be "pristine." The concept of a "pristine" civilization refers to a civiliza…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Sacred City of Caral-Supe, or simply Caral, is an archaeological site in Peru where the remains of the main city of the Caral civilization are found. It is located in the Supe District of Peru, near the current town of Caral, 182 kilometres (113 mi) north of Lima, 23 kilometres (14 mi) from the coast and 350 meters above sea level. It is attributed an antiquity of 5,000 years and it is considered the oldest city in the Americas and one of the oldest in the world. No other site has been found with such a diversity of monumental buildings or different ceremonial and administrative functions in the Americas as early as Caral. It has been declared a Humanity Cultural Heritage site by UNESCO…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

This is a list of the oldest existing universities in continuous operation in the world. Inclusion in this list is determined by the date at which the educational institute is generally recognised as having become a university by academic historians, although it may have existed as a different kind of institution before that time. This limits the term "university" to institutions with distinctive structural and legal features that developed in Europe, and which make the university form different from other institutions of higher learning in the pre-modern world, even though these may sometimes now be referred to popularly as universities. The main list consists of institutions generally rec…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Human history, or world history, is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present. Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers. They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age, spreading to every continent except Antarctica by its end, 12,000 years ago. Soon afterwards, the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia included the first systematic husbandry of plants and animals, and saw many humans transition from nomadic lives to sedentary existences as farmers in permanent settlements. The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting and writing. Early civilizations then emerged in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Peru…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The earliest human civilizations developed independently of each other and a cradle of civilization is a location and a culture from which one of them emerged. A civilization is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond signed or spoken languages (namely, writing systems and graphic arts). Scholars generally acknowledge six cradles of civilization: Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India and Ancient China are believed to be the earliest in Afro-Eurasia, while the Caral–Supe civilization of coastal Peru and the Olmec civilization of Mexico are believed to be the earliest in the Americas…