A 4,000 year-old temple has been unearthed in the Lambayeque valley, on the northern coast of Peru. According to the expedition's leading archaeologist, Walter Alva, carbon-dating tests indicate the Ventarron temple is one of the oldest finds in the Americas.
A 4,000-year-old temple filled with murals has been unearthed on the northern coast of Peru, making it one of the oldest finds in the Americas, a leading archaeologist said on Saturday. The temple, inside a larger ruin, includes a staircase that leads up to an altar used for fire worship at a site scientists have called Ventarron, said Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, who led the dig. It sits in the Lambayeque valley, near the ancient Sipan complex that Alva unearthed in the 1980s. Ventarron was built long before Sipan, about 2,000 years before Christ.