Peruvian archeologist Walter Alva and his team,…

Peruvian archeologist Walter Alva and his team, excavating in 2007, found a four thousand-year-old temple with painted murals at Ventarrón, in the northwest Lambayeque region.

The temple contained ceremonial offerings gained from exchange with Peruvian jungle societies, as well as those from the Ecuadorian coast.

Such finds show sophisticated, monumental construction requiring large-scale organization of labor, suggesting that hierarchical, complex cultures arose in South America much earlier than scholars had thought.