Overview
Across the continent, Archaic peoples fished the rich Pacific coast, hunted and gathered in the highlands, and slowly took up cultivation. In the Andes they domesticated crops and camelids that would sustain every later civilization.
Key developments
On the Peruvian coast the Norte Chico or Caral-Supe civilization built large platform mounds and sunken circular plazas from around 3500 BC, the oldest known complex society in the Americas. It thrived on irrigation agriculture and Pacific fishing, apparently without pottery or writing.
End and transition
The monumental tradition of the coast and highlands set the stage for the temple-building cultures that followed. From these roots grew the long sequence of Andean civilizations.