Think Peru, think Incas - but did you know that Peru has the oldest archaeology in the New World? The remains of a Peruvian man have been found that lived 18-20,000 years ago and the men of Chilca, on the Southern Peruvian coast first farmed their land some 9,000 years ago.

Peru is on a par with Egypt where the building of monuments is concerned, with the architecture of the Caral in the Supe Valley being carbon dated at 2627BC, compared to the Great Pyramid of Khufa (Giza) which was built between 2600-2480BC. However, there is a key difference between the two countries – in Peru we are still in the midst of major excavation.

Yielding some 90% of all the archaeological riches in South America, Peru is a rich seam of history. With so many pre-Inca civilizations to choose from it is hardly surprising that the earth contains so many treasures. Starting from the Chavin de Huantar civilization in the Ancash area (900-500BC), the Paracas civilization on the Southern coast of Peru specialized in weaving (750-100BC), the Nazca culture left us with the infamous enigmatic lines across miles of plains (300BC-850AD), the Moche people were great artisans (100-900AD) and the Chimu on the Northern Coast produced excellent pieces of metallurgy with advanced techniques that we still don't fully understand (900-1500AD). And that's a snapshot of just some of what took place before the Inca era.