Andean and Chavín civilizations

Several people groups that lived in the Andean region in South America, such as the Chavín and the Caral or Norte Chico.

The Caral or Norte Chico civilisations lived in what is now north-central coastal Peru, and lived around 3500-1700 BCE. They were a specialised and complex society, as their people had specialities.
Some argue that the Caral is the oldest civilisation in the Americas region, but others dispute it, saying that there is not enough evidence to support such claims. 

The Caral built large earthwork mounds with circular plazas sunken into the ground; their occupied area was around 150 acres.

Instead of growing agricultural crops like other civilisations, they mainly grew cotton, which was mainly used for textiles, clothing and fishnets, and they gathered most of their food from the sea.

Throughout the excavations we did of the Caral dig sites, we found a lack of ceramic pottery for food preservation.

Clay pottery was one of the main ways for storing food for long periods of time, and since they gathered most of their food from the nearby sea, and did not preserve grown food, some argue that the Caral do not fit the criteria for a full Civilization.

Some artifacts of the Caral include flutes made of bird bones, a type of deer and llama bones named "cornetts".
These animals were also used for their diet, and these animals were probably hunted in the wild instead of being domesticated.

Another type of artifacts we found was the Quipu, which dates back to 1500 CE, and was used by Andean civilizations including the Incas, to store information. It was capable of recording transactions and doing calculations.

This was also one of the reasons why some people argue that they were not a full civilisation since they didn't have a formal written system.

The Chavín