Civilization lost?

"Caral is a fabulous complex of a site," says Michael Moseley, an anthropology professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Its sheer size and the scale of its pyramids suggest to some experts that its inhabitants were developing an economy different from maritime communities on the coast, he says, although the point remains controversial.

Caral's one-time splendor makes its current condition all the more troubling. Shady and her archaeologists have barely scratched the surface of this vast area. The central zone itself stretches out over 160 acres. Her university in Lima, La Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, supports her and her team of archaeologists. The Peruvian government has provided a new van and 25 soldiers during the work week to help with the digging. But it's not enough, Shady says.

The soldiers have no training in excavation. Because of its own financial woes, her university has cut her team of on-site archaeologists from six down to three. To add insult to injury, the site itself remains unprotected and unguarded. So private cars and even tour buses show up unexpectedly throughout the day. To keep errant tourists from trampling the site, archaeologists leave their own work and give guided tours.

"It's very difficult because in Peru, there is no political culture that favors archaeological investigation," Shady says. "Archaeologists find themselves isolated."

To raise money, Shady agreed to work with Jonathan Haas, curator of anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, and his wife, Winifred Creamer, anthropologist at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. The pair helped Shady get several Caral samples radiocarbon-dated in the United States, which proved the site dates back to at least 2600 BC, as Shady suspected. (The city probably is older, she contends, because the dated samples didn't come from the oldest parts of the excavations.) The three then coauthored an article on Caral.

But relations cooled after the article appeared last April in Science magazine. The American press quoted Drs. Haas and Creamer extensively, making it appear they were leading the team even though their work at the site was limited to collecting the samples for dating. And US funds never materialized.

Haas did propose $50,000 in support if Shady would agree to let him and his wife pursue their research in the area. She refused.

"I think it's an ... unequal relationship," she says. "There are many benefits for the professionals abroad." Little, if any, trickles down to local archaeologists. Haas points out that the US government will only fund archaeological research abroad if an American plays a lead role.

"There are always problems with this kind of arrangement," says Betty Meggers, a research associate and anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution who has worked for years with Shady and other Latin American archaeologists. "North Americans are always going to be dominant."

But "it's at a crossroads now," she adds. "As you're getting more well-trained people down there, they're saying: 'We've had enough of this.' "

Instead of looking for funds abroad, Shady is trying to build local support from the ground up. She has convinced a nearby village to make T-shirts and caps with Caral logos, which her museum will sell.

After a full day of digging on one recent weekend trek to Caral, she traveled to a nearby village for an hour-long meeting. By the glow of kerosene lamps (the village still has no electricity), she tried to convince local leaders to open a small inn and restaurant to accommodate tourists and visiting archaeologists. Tourism, she hopes, will convince the government that her site is important enough to receive more support. Village leaders, however, remain skeptical.

"There's a problem of self-identification in the country," Shady answers when locals ask her why Peru is so backward today. When Caral flourished, "the society was organized with a population that worked to do things collectively for the collective good. But with the rupture from the arrival of the Spaniards [3,500 years later], there was no more interest in the country except as a source of minerals to be exported to Spain."

Even after the colonizers were thrown out, she says, "our leaders, generally because of problems of identity and self-esteem, believed that everything from abroad was good. Never again did they try to understand the country from its geography, from its history, from its social problems."

Page: 1 | 2