* Astronomy

Giant Preceramic animal effigy mounds in South America?

Peru is famous for its geoglyphs but animal effigy mounds have not been reported in the Andes previously except for isolated cases (e.g. llamas in the Santa Valley; Wilson 1998). The mythical condor is well known over much of South America (Urton 1981; Arnold & Espejo Ayca 2006), condor images of rocks are common in the Andes (Sánchez Garrafa 1999) and condors have also been depicted in petroglyphs, for example in a petroglyph at Calyipuy dated to 1000 BC (Bueno Mendoza 2006). At Buena Vista, accepting that the carved stone pillar, one of a pair on a ridge, is a condor, this important symbol marks the equinoctial sunrise from a temple which hosts a number of astronomical viewing points (Benfer in press 2011; Benfer & Adkins 2008; Benfer et al. 2010 & 2011). The lower effigy mound at El Paraíso may represent a cayman or puma, and the two mounds from the Casma valley are interpreted as birds. The simplest explanation for these mounds is that they represent animals that mirror those in the Andean Zodiac, in the same manner as North American effigy mounds may be seen as representing animals of their respective constellations (Bernardini 2004). More fieldwork and investigation of ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources will be necessary to test this interpretation.

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Google earth file: Chillón Valley mound.kmz (2kb, kmz)