Discovery of the Chavín Culture in Peru

Abstract

In 1919, while exploring the basin of the Mariash or Pukcha River, one of the upper Amazon affluents, I found in Chavín de Huantar evidence of a culture that, up to then, had not been given due recognition. I proved that certain buildings and other products of aboriginal art found there belonged to a quite distinctive cycle of culture–that of the Chavín stone culture. Monolithic figures of serpents and felines, representing human heads, and stelae, obelisks, sundry utensils, and other objects decorated with incised or carved figures in plane, high or low relief, representing grotesque felines, serpents, fish, lizards and birds are the main features of this culture, whose area of diffusion had then been reconnoitered only in the provinces of Huari and Pomabama.