Archaeoastronomical study on the north-central coast of Peru

TL;DR

This study investigates the astronomical orientations of Caral civilization structures in Peru, aiming to clarify their potential astronomical significance through field measurements and statistical analysis.

Contribution

It proposes a detailed analysis of the city’s key structures to understand their orientation patterns and possible astronomical links, building on previous broader studies.

Findings

Identification of specific orientation patterns in key structures

Potential correlations with astronomical objects or events

Enhanced understanding of Caral's cultural and religious practices

Abstract

The Caral civilization developed on the north-central coast of Peru and had an occupation period between 2870 and 1970 years BC. The first studies carried out in the field of archaeoastronomy showed evidence of possible astronomical orientations in some buildings of its capital city, the Ciudad Sagrada de Caral. However, methodological issues cast doubt on these conclusions. A recent study carried out a more general statistical analysis, which covered a total of 55 architectural structures distributed in ten urban settlements that were part of this civilization, thus managing to identify topographic and astronomical orientation patterns. Based on this evidence, we propose to carry out a new study focused on the capital city, with the objective of analyzing the orientation pattern of the city, placing emphasis on the analysis of the most important religious and administrative structures in order to determine their functionality and their possible links with relevant astronomical objects. The study will include field work to measure the various structures and the subsequent statistical analysis of the data, using declination histograms, density functions and probability tests.