Older than Machu Picchu: Temple over 4,000 years old discovered in Peru

There is a relatively recently discovered culture/civilization in Peru that is even older than the group that built this temple. It's the Norte Chico civilization (aka Caral), the oldest civilization in the Americas. They date to about 5,000 years ago and were roughly contemporaneous with ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, China, the Indus Valley, and Egypt

Anyway, for you history/archeology buffs

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Archaeologists in Peru have discovered the ruins of an ancient religious complex that is 3,500 years older than the famous Incan citadel of Machu Picchu. It has also become known that there were other settlements in Peru before the Incas, according to Sci.News.

According to the research team from the Ucupe Cultural Landscape Archaeological Project, the recently discovered temple and theater are approximately three and a half thousand years older than Machu Picchu. The found structures were built long before the Incas and their predecessors appeared.

"It was amazing. This discovery tells us about the early origins of religion in Peru. We still know very little about how and under which circumstances complex belief systems emerged in the Andes, and now we have evidence about some of the earliest religious spaces that people were creating in this part of the world," said Dr. Muro Ynoñán, project leader and an archaeologist at the Field Museum.

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MSN