The Buena Vista Astronomical Religious Tradition

Abstract

A maritime, rather than agricultural, foundation for civilization has been postulated for the central coast of Perú; the model has been subsequently modified in light of new evidence to include exchange with farming communities in middle valleys. A key question is what caused the sudden appearance of sites with monumental architecture before the introduction of ceramics on the central Andean coast? Recent reports call for further refinement of this hypothesis, and here we present new evidence —the finding of very ancient calendaric temples, ushnus that were observatories in the Chillón Valley. We argue that the stimulus for intensification of production of storable foods required for continued population expansion was the climate shock of the end of the Optimum Climaticum in the third millennium BC. These observatories marked dates of great practical importance for both agriculture and marine production. Astronomer priests came to manage the architecture and representational art in the Late Preceramic Chillón Valley. These powerful priests, with their own special dwellings at the site, acquired power that would have superseded the family/ayllu dimension. The complexity of the observatories at Buena Vista is without precedent in the Americas. The power guarded by those first astronomer priests may have been precariously held; an unpredicted flood could have destroyed their credibility. In any case, the ushnus at Buena Vista show that a wide variety of astronomical instruments were developed: a sighting device, the gaze of a personified figure, and the photon capturing device of a special light chamber, as well as entryway and stairwell alignments. This astronomical tradition is exhibited in a very complex stage of development by 2000 BC, at the site of Buena Vista.