The Nazca culture flourished on the dry southern coast of Peru, in valleys of rivers that run from the Andes to the Pacific. Its people grew maize, beans and squash, and built underground aqueducts called puquios to bring water to their fields in one of the driest places on Earth. The ceremonial center of Cahuachi, with its adobe pyramids and plazas, was the main religious site. The Nazca are best known for their colorful polychrome pottery and for the Nazca Lines, giant geoglyphs of animals, plants and geometric figures scratched into the desert floor, whose purpose is still debated. Environmental stress, such as floods and the clearing of the huarango trees, may have contributed to the decline of the culture, which later came under the influence of the Wari.
Before and after
- 1st centuryOrigins of House of the Virgin Mary
- 1st centuryOrigins of Frankfurt
- from 100 CE to 1200Ghana Empire
- from c. 100 CE to 700 CEMoche culture
- from 1st century to 7th centuryNazca culture
- c. 100sConstruction of Trajan's Forum
- 1st centuryConstruction of Tower of Hercules
- 100 CEBirth of Ptolemy
- from 101 CE to 106 CETrajan's Dacian Wars
More in Evolution & life
- from c. 3,200 BCE to 1,050 BCECycladic civilization
- from 31st century BCE to 20th century BCECorded Ware culture
- from c. 2,300 BCE to 1,000 BCEAndronovo culture
- from c. 1,300s BCE to 500s BCEChavín culture
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 800 BCEUrnfield culture
- 11th century BCEThe Bantu expansion begins
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires.