Caral, located in the Supe Valley north of Lima, is among the oldest urban settlements in the Americas — radiocarbon dating places its construction at roughly 2600 BCE, contemporaneous with the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The site was only formally recognized by Peruvian authorities in 2009, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site largely through the sustained fieldwork of archaeologist Ruth Shady Solís, whose excavations beginning in the 1990s overturned long-held assumptions about the geographic origins of complex civilization in the Western Hemisphere.
This coin is part of the BCR's ongoing "Riqueza y Orgullo del Perú" circulation commemorative series.
Caral, located in the Supe Valley north of Lima, is among the oldest urban settlements in the Americas — radiocarbon dating places its construction at roughly 2600 BCE, contemporaneous with the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The site was only formally recognized by Peruvian authorities in 2009, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site largely through the sustained fieldwork of archaeologist Ruth Shady Solís, whose excavations beginning in the 1990s overturned long-held assumptions about the geographic origins of complex civilization in the Western Hemisphere.
This coin is part of the BCR's ongoing "Riqueza y Orgullo del Perú" circulation commemorative series.