An ancient Peruvian temple discovered under a sand dune is rewriting what we know about civilizations that lived up to 3,500 years before the Inca.
The temple reveals the early emergence of institutional religion — and possibly human sacrifice — in the Initial Period of Andean Civilization. This period goes from roughly 2000 B.C. to the rise of Chavín de Huántar and the Early Horizon period in roughly 900 B.C. Ceramic pottery and the spread of a number of temples characterized this period.
“It was clear that it was densely occupied,” says Luis Muro Ynoñan, an archaeologist with the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
How Was La Otra Banda Discovered?
Local authorities contacted Muro Ynoñan in 2023 after hearing reports of looting in the area near Zaña, an old colonial-era town in the northwest of Peru. At the time, he and his colleagues were planning a nearby Moche excavation. After seeing traces of murals at the bottom of the various looting holes that were left in the area, they decided to add this new area to their plans.
